Ef, 88<J

/tej^yn*

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

Y'< - •'.' T1

1 ¦-'- "*?•-- ¦ S
' ' | -'v^wJfe«'iv-

AN ECLIPSE PARTY
IN AFRICA

CHASING SUMMER ACROSS THE EQUATOR
IN THE U.S.S. PENSACOLA

BY

EBEN J. LOOMIS
OF THE u. o. SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION TO WEST AFRICA, 188Q-QO
SENIOR ASSISTANT U. S. NAUTICAL ALMANAC OFFICE

3IUtt0tratrti

BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1896

Copyright, 1896,
By Roberts Brothers.

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, TJ. S. A.

INTRODUCTION.
BY THE CHIEF OF THE EXPEDITION.

HEN, early in September, 1889, I was
called by the Secretary of the Navy to
the charge of the Eclipse Expedition to
Africa, authorized by Act of Congress
six months previously, it seemed best to
organize that Expedition not only with reference to
astronomy, but to other branches of scientific investiga
tion as well; for the region to be visited was but im
perfectly known. The personnel of the Expedition,
therefore, included workers in terrestrial physics,
meteorology, natural history, linguistics, and ethnology ;
and an abundant harvest was garnered, which has from
time to time been set forth in technical papers, chiefly
in the " Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society," " Nature," " The American Meteorological
Journal," the publications of the United States Coast
and Geodetic Survey and of the Smithsonian Institu
tion, the " Proceedings of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences," the " Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences," the " Memoirs of the American

Vlll INTRODUCTION.
Folk-lore Society," and elsewhere. The inspection of
these papers will make it apparent why the Expedition,
although sent out to Africa, was not intended for
exploration or discovery, much less for adventure.
But every such expedition has many matters of
popular interest, wholly dissociated from its scientific
work, which nevertheless are well worth careful
presentation in narrative form by a historian who has
himself been a member of the Expedition, and who
knows what to see and how to tell the story. No one
could have done this better than Mr Loomis has done
in this present volume ; and it is much embellished by
photographs taken in considerable part by Messrs
Wright and Davis.
Especially timely will be found Mr Loomis's account
of Saint Helena; and the needed permission to print
this has been courteously accorded by the officials of
H. B. M.'s Colonial Office. No less interesting is the
chapter on that unique spot the neighboring island of
Ascension, a chapter which has the sanction of the
Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. DAVID P. TODD.
Amherst College Observatory,
November, 1896.

CONTENTS.

Chapter Page
I. First Days at Sea — The Azores  1
II. The Cape de Verde Islands, Sierra Leone,
and the Gold Coast  13
III. Saint Paul de Loanda — Cape Ledo and- the
Total Eclipse — Along the West Coast —
Phosphorescence — The Southern Night Sky . 38
IV. Cape Town — Dr. David Gill and the Eoyal
Observatory   82
V. The Veldt — The Great Karroo — A Mirage . 102
VI. The Diamond Mines of Kimberley . . . 107
VII. Saint Helena  130
VIII. A "Walk from Jamestown to Longwood — The
Exile of Napoleon — Legend of 'The Friar' 161
IX. Ascension  177
X. Barbados — A Glimpse of Bermuda — Home . 206

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page
Mastole Bay, Angola, West Africa  Frontispiece
Horta, Fayal, Azores, from Pt. Guia  7
Capote worn by the Women of Fayal  10
Cow-team at Horta, Fayal, Azores  11
Vessels in the Harbor of Porto Grande, Cape Verde Islands . 15
The Mountains Surrounding Porto Grande, Cape Verde
Islands  17
San Vicente, Cape Verde Islands  19
Africans. — Portuguese Natives at San Vicente, Cape Verde
Islands  21
Sierra Leone, West Africa, Freetown, from the Old Barracks 23
Street Scene at Freetown, Sierra Leone  25
Huts and Cocoanut Palms near the Beach, Elmina, Gold
Coast, West Africa  27
Ashanti Stool from the Market-Place at Elmina  28
Fort Saint George d'Elmina, Gold Coast, West Africa . . 29
Native Huts and Cocoanut Palms at Elmina  31
Pipe Presented to the Chief of the Expedition by King
Quanco Andoh   36
Saint Paul de Loanda and the Harbor  37
View in the Interior of Angola, on the Bio Bengo. Along
the line of the Caminho de Ferro Trans-Africano . . 39
Quanza Water-Filter  40
The English Eclipse Camp at Cape Ledo, Angola .... 41

X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page
Beach at Cape Ledo, Angola, West Africa ....... 42
View in the Interior. Trans- African Railway  43
Saint Paul de Loanda, West Africa  45
Landing of Heavy Instruments at Cape Ledo  47
Vegetation near Eclipse Camp, Cape Ledo  48
The Bluff, Cape Ledo, West Africa  49
Baobabs near the Eclipse Camp, Cape Ledo  50
Baobab Tree and Detachment of Pensacola's Crew .... 51
Palms near Eclipse Camp, Cape Ledo  52
At Cape Ledo  53
Cannibal Visitors at the Eclipse Camp, Cape Ledo .... 55
Cannibal Visitors at Cape Ledo  59
Our Marine Guard and their Tents at Cape Ledo .... 65
Bluffs and Vegetation near the Beach, Cape Ledo .... 69
Fort San Pedro, at Loanda, West Africa  71
Saint Paul de Loanda  73
Street in Saint Paul de Loanda, West Africa  74
Wharves and Distant Bluffs, Saint Paul de Loanda .... 75
National Bank at Saint Paul de Loanda, West Africa ... 76
View in the Native Quarter, Saint Paul de Loanda .... 77
Ocean View, Southeast of Lion's Head, near Cape Town . . 83
Near Cape Town   84
Adderley Street, Cape Town  85
Parliament House, Cape Town (Table Mountain in Back
ground) ...  87
The Parliament House, Cape Town. Unveiling of the Vic
toria Statue, 21st January, 1890  89
Statue of H. M. Queen Victoria, at Cape Town  91
Small Dome, Eoyal Observatory, Cape Town  93
View of Cape Town, from Lion's Eump Eoad  95
The Eoyal Observatory, Cape Town  96
At the Eoyal Observatory, Cape Town  97

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi
Page
Instrument Houses, Eoyal Observatory, Cape Town ... 99
Cape Town from the Docks  101
In the Streets of Kimberley, South Africa  . 109
Town Hall at Kimberley, South Africa  Ill
At Kimberley  113
In the Diamond Mines, Kimberley, South Africa .... 115
The Largest Diamond found at Kimberley  121
The Pensacola ' dressed up ' at Saint Helena  131
Saint Helena (Sandy Bay)  133
On Board the U. S. S. Pensacola. Target Practice off Saint
Helena— 'Take Aim!'  135
Saint Helena, 1890. (View in the Interior.)  137
Saint Helena, 1890. Eosemary Hall  139
Saint Helena, 1890. (Street Scene in Jamestown. ) . . . 143
Eoadside View in Saint Helena  145
Saint Helena, 1890. ' The Briars. ' (Adjoining Napoleon's
First Eesidence.)  147
Aloes and Bananas, Saint Helena  149
' Napoleon Val, ' Saint Helena  151
'The Briars,' Saint Helena. First Eesidence of Napoleon
on the Island  163
Napoleon's Tomb  165
The Approach to Longwood, Saint Helena  167
Porter's Lodge, Longwood, Napoleon's Eesidence at Saint
Helena  169
Bust of Napoleon. (Made from the Death-Mask.) .... 171
Longwood (Old House), Saint Helena. Napoleon died in
the room under the Dormer  173
U. S. S. Pensacola. Target Practice off Saint Helena —
'Haul in!'  175
Ascension Island — Garrison and Fort Thornton  179
Ascension Island — Near View of the ' Clinker ' . , . . 183

xil LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page
Cottage near the Summit of Green Mountain, Ascension . . 191
Clinker Plains and Volcanic Cones, Ascension . . . . , 197
Green Turtle at Ascension Island  199
' Wide Awake Fair, ' Ascension ... ,.'.... 201
Instruments of the Magnetic and Gravimetric Survey. United
States Eclipse Expedition to West Africa, 1889 . . 203
The Post-Office, Bridgetown, Barbados  211
The Wharves at Bridgetown, Barbados  213
Street Scene at Bridgetown, Barbados  215
The Shipping, and Statue of Nelson, at Bridgetown, Barbados 217

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

CHAPTER I.
FIRST DAYS AT SEA. — THE AZORES.
Now from the orient heaven the sun
Had clothed the eastward waves with fire :
Right from the west the fair breeze blew ;
The full sails swelled, and sparkling through
The sounding sea the vessel flew.
T. L. Peacock.

N Saturday afternoon, 12th October, 1889,
about twelve tons of astronomical instru
ments were securely packed and loaded on
cars at Washington, ready to be hauled
out the next evening, bound for the
Brooklyn Navy Yard and the U. S. S. Pensacola.
These instruments were for the use of the United States
Scientific Expedition to the West Coast of Africa, in ob
serving the total solar eclipse of 22d December, 1889.
The next evening, in the midst of a driving rain
storm, I boarded the train at ten o'clock ; the same train
including the cars containing the eclipse instruments,
entrusted to my general oversight until they were safely

2 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
delivered at the dock in Brooklyn, where the Pensa
cola lay awaiting them.
For the most part that journey to New York was
a blank, passed in a dreamless sleep, undisturbed by
visions of torrid heats and hungry cannibals, supposed
to be the inevitable concomitants of tropical Africa.
Reaching New York in the early morning of the 14th,
arrangements were made for the transfer of the instru
ments to the Navy Yard; and, these completed, I pro
ceeded to Brooklyn and went on board.
Having been intended for a flagship, and built at a
time when an admiral was more respected than an engine,
the accommodations were unusually ample. Her cabin
is divided into four, by athwartship and fore and aft
partitions. The two cabins on the starboard side were
occupied by the commanding officer, the late Captain
Arthur R. Yates, U. S. Navy; while those on the port
side were assigned to Professor David P. Todd, of
Amherst College, Chief of the Expedition, and other
members of the scientific party.
Monday and Tuesday, the 14th and 15th of October,
were occupied in putting on board the instruments
and cabin stores for the voyage; and at seven o'clock
on Wednesday morning, the 16th, the hawsers were
cast off, and the Pensacola started on her long way
to Saint Paul de Loanda, Angola, West Africa. In
order to pass under the Brooklyn bridge without con
tact, it was necessary to send down the topmasts; and
for that reason we did not present a very ship-shape ap
pearance, from a sailor's point of view, on leaving the
wharf. But when, astronomically speaking, the Pensa-

FIRST DAYS AT SEA. 3
cola had passed her lower culmination at that great
arch, the topmasts were sent up, and the good ship
steamed away down the beautiful harbor of New York,
and outside Sandy Hook, where the wind was blowing
half a gale from the northeast, and the waves were so
high that even the officers, experienced sea-dogs as they
were, admitted, half reluctantly, that it was a 'little
rough.' And the sea grew rougher on getting farther out.
The Pensacola rolls very comfortably, not with a short
jerky motion, but with a stately swing, giving time
between rolls to adapt one's centre of gravity to the
immediately ensuing horizontal shift in the point of
support. I think that in a previous state of existence, before
my metamorphosis into a human being, I must have
been some denizen of the ocean, with a never satisfied
hunger and a love for blue water, both so strong as
to have survived metempsychosic change ; for I cannot
otherwise satisfactorily account for my complete im
munity from sea-sickness, and an appetite that seemed
as it were to grow by what I fed on.
Friday, 18th October, 3rd day out. — The wind has now died
down to a three-knot breeze, with a perfectly cloudless sky,
and the water is heaving in long swells which give just a
pleasant roll to the ship, but not enough to make even ancient
Pistol qualmish at the smell of leek — or bilge water. A
sparrow came aboard this forenoon, blown off shore by the
northeaster. To-day I saw for the first time a Portuguese
man-of-war, a delicate purple bubble, floating airily along, evi
dently caring nothing for rough water or any possibly impend
ing hurricane ; for if the weather and waves grow too stormy

4 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
for his comfort, he quietly sinks to a region of perfect calm
and serenity.
Perhaps the seaman might derive a certain amount of com
fort during a heavy storm by thinking of this place of calm
so very near him, actually less than a hundred feet beneath
the surface, — much the same kind of comfort to be found by
' thinking on the frosty Caucasus ' while trying to hold fire in
his hand ; a species of ideal happiness, pleasing perhaps to
disciples of Bishop Berkeley, but hardly fitted to delight the
average sailor. Should Professor von Schlackenberg ever
build another Flying Fish capable of the feats related by that
authentic historian Mr Collingwood, this lower region of calm
will be available. Meantime we must confine ourselves to the
surface, if possible, feeling happy if we are not forced by stress
of weather into the bourne below, whence, with no other than
our present appliances, never a sailor-man returns.
Our meteorologist, Professor Abbe, made several attempts
this afternoon to raise toy balloons inflated with hydrogen gas,
and having a long string attached, with a bright-colored paper
fastened to the end, — the whole arrangement being intended
to show the drift and direction of the lower strata of air.
With one or two exceptions, these attempts failed of success
from lack of buoyancy. The balloon would rise a short dis
tance, and then descend until the paper came in contact with
the water, where it acted as an anchor to hold the little
crimson sphere a tethered prisoner, while the. wind drifted it
rapidly to leeward.
Tuesday, 22d October, 1th day out. — ¦ In the morning I was
called on deck to see a water-spout. A heavy black cloud lay
along the southwest horizon, and in one place on the water
there was a white mist boiling furiously and rising to meet a
well-defined, thin column of gray vapor descending from the
cloud; This column had a distinctly spiral twist, and its
central line was several shades darker than the other parts.
The descent of the column continued until it met and con-

FIRST DAYS AT SEA. 5
nected itself with the mist, already risen many feet above the
surface. The connection remained intact for several minutes,
and then broke, the mist subsiding, and the gray column with
drawing into the cloud. While this was going on, other spouts
formed, until at one time there were seven simultaneously
active. They continued to form and disappear to the number
of thirty, when all vanished, and were followed by a short
squall lasting somewhat more than an hour. Then the sky
cleared, and the soft, summery air again caressed the cheek
like the touch of a human hand.
Friday, 1st November, 11th day out. — When somewhat
weary of looking at nothing but water, sky, and Mother Carey
chickens, the announcement of ' Land broad off the port bow '
was very welcome. This proved to be the island of Flores,
the westernmost of the Azores.
Saturday, 2nd November, 18th day out. — Early this morn
ing the Pensacola dropped anchor in the harbor of Horta,
Fayal. On the outward trip, as the time before the eclipse
was short, no attempt was made to measure the force
of gravity, — for setting up the pendulum, protecting it
from currents of air and other sources of disturbance re
quired much time and careful preparation ; but the mag
netic instruments were landed at every port where the
Pensacola put in for coal, and the dip of the needle and
the horizontal force of magnetism were determined
by hourly observations. Immediately on landing at
Horta, Professor Todd, accompanied by our Consul,
the late Mr Dabney, called on the Portuguese officials
to get permission to land and set up our instruments.
Authority was promptly and courteously given, and
the instruments were mounted in tents pitched not

6 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
far from the landing. During" the day and a half of
our stay, observations on magnetism went on as ac
curately and systematically as though the temporary
tents were a permanent magnetic observatory, and our
visit were to be a year instead of thirty-six hours.
Professor Todd placed this department of the work in
charge of Mr E. D. Preston of the U. S. Coast and
Geodetic Survey.
The Chief of the Expedition decided to issue from
time to time bulletins of information on the various
scientific objects of our mission, — instructions in re
gard to methods of observation, results reached, and
so on.
These bulletins, written by different members of
the expedition, were printed, usually on the Pensacola
press, — for among a thousand other conveniences our
good ship carried a printing-office ; but when we went
into port for coal, the local press of the place was some
times utilized for this service. The first one so printed
was Bulletin No. 5, on the ' Bibliography of Ki-mbundu.'
It was printed in English ; but never a word of that
language did any one in the Horta printing-office know.
I regret exceedingly that I was not able to retain as a
souvenir the first proof of this bulletin ; it would have
become a successful rival to the famous ' English as she-
is spoke.' The greater part of the day was spent by
the author, Mr Chatelain, and myself in correcting the
proofs ; and the final impression retains no trace of the
exquisitely funny mistakes, at which we did not dare
to laugh while in • the printing-office, lest we should hurt
the feelings or offend the pride of the proprietor and

OH3
o wo<!4
< <
HO

8 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
his workmen. They were all very obliging, from the
head man to the office boy, and all had a dignified and
impressive politeness.
Indeed, it was sometimes oppressive as well ; for, re
turning to the office after a hot walk through the
quaint streets of Horta, I removed my hat for the sake
of coolness ; but the proprietor, supposing I uncovered
from respect, refused to receive so great a mark of con
descension, and insisted upon my resuming my hat,
which I was obliged to do to satisfy his modest
scruples. It was a relief when the proof-reading was
finished and I was at liberty to return to the open air
on the shady side of the street and to walk with un
covered head.
The real beauty of this island was undoubtedly
greatly enhanced in my eyes by the fact that I had
looked on no land whatever, except a distant glimpse
of Flores, for nearly three weeks ; but its actual loveli
ness is sufficient excuse, if excuse be necessary, for
enthusiastic enjoyment of its delightful temperature, its
wilderness of flowers, the rugged scenery, and withal
the generous hospitality with which the members of the
expedition were received by Mr Dabney and his family.
At Horta the fact was firmly impressed on my mind,
by what may be called an object lesson, that communi
cation between men without a common language is
not only extremely difficult, but liable to cause quite
important misunderstandings. I entered a little shop
to make some small purchase, and found at once that
the shopkeeper was as ignorant of English as I of
Portuguese. At length, among the crowd which had,

THE AZORES. 9
I suppose, followed me in to help trade, I saw a man
who informed me (in Portuguese and signs) that he
could ' spik Inglis.' Through his help my purchase
was decided on ; but I had a few moments of startled
equanimity when the price was stated as three hundred
somethings. The dollar being the American unit of
value, I naturally supposed that I had bought a small
but expensive three-hundred-dollar straw basket, and
I reflected, rather sadly, that my basket, though very
small, would easily hold the remainder of my letter
of credit after paying for the very first purchase. It
was soon made clear to me, however, that the unit in
this case was not the dollar, but the reis, equal to one
tenth of a cent. So my three-hundred-dollar debt
shrunk at once to thirty cents, and I carried off the
basket in triumph. So great was my relief that, with
reckless American carelessness, I bestowed one hundred
reis on a barefooted urchin, that he might forever after
think of my countrymen with respect. I believe some
thing very similar to this transaction occurred, though
on a much grander scale, to Mr M. Twain, our modern
rival of truth-telling George Washington.
The atmosphere of Horta was unmistakably medi
aeval. The massive stone houses were like castles built
for defence against Paynim or Saracen ; and the illusion
was the stronger because of a singular garment worn by
the women, — a long cloak or capote of black cloth,
extending to the feet, and with an immense hood pro
jecting so far over the face as to completely hide the
features; as if one should slip an elbow of stove-pipe
over the head, and look out of the horizontal section.

10

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

It brought to mind the familiars of the Inquisition,
moving stealthily along the street, disguised in myste
rious garments, while searching for heretics. Carts in
Horta have wheels made of the solid section of a log,
fastened firmly to the axle, which turns with the wheels.
To this vehicle a pair of
small cows are yoked;
and the progress of the
establishment along the
street is announced by
the nerve-exasperating
squeak of the dry axle
on its dry bearing.
Trees, shrubs, and
flowers flourish at Fayal
with tropical luxuri
ance. The geranium
and hibiscus grow into
trees of quite stately
proportions, and the
cape jasmine is set and
trained as a hedge. It
was a little late to see
this shrub in the height
of its season, but enough flowers were left to give a hint
of what its white glory might be at full development ;
and even the few blossoms left filled the soft, warm
air with delicious odor. The trees, vines, and hedges
were populous with wild canary-birds, — not the wholly
lemon-yellow kind seen in cages, which has been devel
oped by artificial breeding and selection, but a bird with

capote worn by the women of fayal.

THE AZORES.

11

gray wings and back, and the yellow confined mostly
to the breast and sides. But his song has all of the
lyrical character of the domesticated species, and the
additional charm of a soft, liquid voice, never rising1
into shrillness.
Immediately opposite the harbor of Horta, in a direc
tion slightly south of east, and about five miles away,

COW-TEAM AT HORTA, FAYAL, AZORES.

lies the island of Pico, with the famous mountain of
the same name rising to the height of 7600 feet.
Upon this island is produced the celebrated Pico wine,
which has a high reputation, as indeed it should have,
in all civilized countries. Our stay in Horta depended
upon the time necessary for coaling the Pensacola ;
and as less than two days would suffice for this, there
was not time to cross the channel and climb Pico, as I
very much wished to do. To accomplish this, two full

12 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
days are required. An early start must be made from
Horta, and the time of crossing the channel is quite
uncertain. Usually enough of the first day is left to
ride from the Pico landing, a distance of eighteen miles,
to a house not far below the summit, where the night
is spent. Then an early start on the second day gives
a chance of seeing sunrise from the top, and the re
mainder of the day is required to descend the mountain,
reach the landing, and re-cross to Fayal.
But Pico, like all great personages, has his moods,
and cannot be depended on to be always in a sunny
temper. Sometimes for days together the top is hidden
in a dense gray cloud, when all the rest of the sky is
clear and serene. During the day and a half of our
stay at Horta the peak was generally invisible, but the
cloud broke away several times, giving tantalizingly
short glimpses of the superb crown.
The most impressive view I had was in the evening.
The moon lacked only two or three days of being full,
and the night was ' but the daylight sick,' ' such as
the day is when the sun is hid ; ' and the grand peak,
entirely free from clouds, lifted its majestic head into
the sky, as if the firmament itself were supported by
its immeasurable strength.
At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 3rd of
November the anchor was raised, and the Pensacola
shaped her course for the Cape de Verde Islands, 1300
miles distant. Our memories of Fayal were kept fresh
and vivid for many days by the ladies of our Consul's
family, who sent on board large baskets of lovely
flowers, their beauty and fragrance lasting for a long
time under the preserving influence of sea air.

CHAPTER II.
THE CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS, SIERRA LEONE, AND
THE GOLD COAST.

j]EIDAY, 8th November, 24th day out. — A little
before noon one of the engine valves got out
of order, and the Pensacola was stopped, the
propeller uncoupled, and we proceeded under
sail alone. It was reported that the engine
would probably be in running order again by
nine o'clock in the evening.
Sunday, IQth November, 26th day out. — The repairs were
completed by eight o'clock, and the engine again started.
Monday, 11th November, 21th day out. — We came to our
anchorage at Porto Grande, the chief town on the island of
Saint Vincent, at eight o'clock in the evening. I went ashore
in the morning to mail letters and explore the island. Saint
Vincent is of volcanic origin and utterly barren. Its lava
rocks are eroded into fantastic peaks and pinnacles, lovely in
color from a distance, but near at hand the illusion is lost in
a grim desolation. The streets of the town are narrow and
dirty. Half a score of palm-trees and a few shrubs of some
other kinds comprise all the visible vegetation. The occa
sional gardens are surrounded by high walls pierced with
very small openings ; and in these gardens, of which the only
possible view is through the high and narrow loop-holes, are
a few stunted bushes of a kind able to live during protracted
drought. Some small trees, set out in the front yard of the
Cable Company's grounds, have been kept alive only by unre
mitting care and watering.

14 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
A long drought of more than a year was broken a
short time before our arrival by two days' rain, and
some of the lower slopes of the hills began to show a
slight tinge of green, — so faint indeed that I should not
have noticed it, had not my attention been called by one
of the English residents to ' the rich, fresh green of the
hills.' I supposed his remark was intended for Cape
Verde sarcasm, until I saw he ' was really in earnest,
and then I thought how far from absolute are our ideas,
or, rather, how absolutely relative they are. To him,
the few plants starting up after fourteen months of
rainless weather represented the lush growth of a tropi
cal jungle ; to me, fresh from the fragrant gardens of
Fayal, it was more like the barren, shifting sand-hills
of Sahara, with three or four camel-thorn bushes dotted
on a square mile of surface.
A very striking local peculiarity of Saint Vincent is
the Cape Verde pig-pen. As no timber grows on the
island, some other than the ordinary pen had to be
evolved. Little pits, about four feet deep, with perpen
dicular sides, are dug in the slope of a hill ; into this
the pig is lowered, and a canva.s screen placed on one
side to protect the animal from the sun ; here he re
mains in happy unconsciousness of approaching Christ
mas, when he, or a part of him, will be the centre of
attraction at the merry feast.
Our twenty-four hours' stay here was made very
pleasant by the thoughtful courtesy of the Portuguese
officials and the English officers of the Ocean Cable
Company, — in particular, Mr E. Lloyd, manager of the
Saint Vincent office, who put the cable at our service,

. -*£S??~1

' a ¦,: V v. "i-V

VESSELS IN THE HARBOR OF PORTO GRANDE, CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.

16 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
and telegrams were sent to New York. The actual
distance separating us from home seemed wonderfully
diminished, when we thought that the click of the
instrument at Porto Grande would be repeated at New
York the same day, conveying intelligence to officials
and friends of the safety of the expedition. Although
our stay here was so short, the English gentlemen
offered the hospitality of their club, and made us
welcome and at home.
Monday, 18th November, 34.th day out. — Coaling was fin
ished on the afternoon of 12th November, and the Pensacola
got under way at once. For several days the weather has
been quite hot, like August in Washington.
On the 13th Porto Pray a was sighted on the port beam.
'¦ Port beam ' is the proper sailor term for ' left-hand side.'
Any one can understand ' left-hand side,' but properly to
understand 'port beam' requires special knowledge, such as
only sailors or naval officers possess.
At sea small incidents are thankfully received. On the 13th
a school of porpoises played around the vessel, and we watched
them until they disappeared to windward. On the same day
one of the officers shot a gull, called by the sailors a shag.
The Pensacola was making so little headway (the engine
had been stopped several hours for repairs) that a boat was
lowered and the bird picked up and turned over to our natural
ist for pickling.
About noon to-day we sighted the Sierra Leone mountains,
our first glimpse of Africa. Their outline, seen from a dis
tance, is very picturesque. They are quite rugged, and clothed
to the top with rich vegetation.
As soon as the Pensacola came to anchor, we were
surrounded by a fleet of boats filled with every imagi-

THE MOUNTAINS SURROUNDING PORTO GRANDE, CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.

18 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
nable article for sale, and rowed by boatmen of every
possible shade of color between Scandinavian white and
Ashanti black. Here, half filled with water, was a
rickety punt in which stood a handsome boy with man
goes for sale. He had that peculiarly rich complexion
produced by the smallest admixture of Ethiopia with
Europe ; and as he stood in his leaky boat, not deigning
to cry his wares, but calmly waiting for a possible
customer, the warm blood flushing his cheek with a
wild-rose tint, and his lithe figure swaying to the motion
of the water, I thought that it would be difficult for
more civilized lands to show so fine an example of per
fect grace and youthful dignity. As a complete con
trast to this young prince, in another boat was an
Ashanti negro, inky black and over six feet in height,
with thin, crooked legs, seemingly too weak to support
even the light weight of his almost fleshless body, and
whose emaciated arms, scarcely larger than a stout
walking-stick, yet lifted burdens with perfect ease
which would have severely taxed the power of the
strongest athlete.
These Ashantis, notwithstanding their lack of flesh,
which is a tribal peculiarity, are among the best carriers
in Africa, having great strength and endurance, and,
when treated with a judicious mixture of authority and
kindness, are willing and faithful to the end. One boat
man held up for my inspection a large ivory ring about
three inches in diameter. It had exactly the color of
a meerschaum pipe when it has reached that warm
brown tint admired by smokers, half-way between
creamy white and jet black. It was completely cov-

' ¦ I ;

SAN VICENTE, CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.

20 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
ered with figures carved in low relief, but I could not
make out what they were intended to represent, except
in two cases : one was an elephant, fairly well drawn ;
the second was an ostrich, or it might have been a
cassowary, but this figure was not very well depicted.
The ring, it was quite evident to me, had been a
fetish, belonging probably to some powerful chief or
king, from whom it may have been captured as spoils
of war, and passing from hand to hand was at last
offered for sale in Freetown harbor. The man was not
very anxious to sell, and when I refused to purchase,
did not appear to be disappointed.
He asked eighteen shillings for the charm, and, un
like others who had wares for sale, would not abate a
penny from his asking price. Perhaps I was unwise
not to accept his terms and take the ring, for eighteen
shillings is certainly a small sum to pay for a fetish
giving complete protection against all of the evil things
in the world. But if through lack of faith I lost my
opportunity, I at least saved eighteen shillings ; and even
that small sum has, in civilized countries, considerable
potential power of protection when properly applied.
By this time the noise of the crowd around the vessel
had become intolerable, and in the hope to thin them off
by drowning, I began tossing pennies overboard ; for
each one a dozen boys, accoutred as they were, which
was not at all, plunged in, and the coin was invari
ably brought up. Disappointed in my expectation of
drowning them, I still clung to the hope that some
thing might happen, and if they were too amphibious
to drown, I was willing to accept a shark instead.

AFRICANS. — PORTUGUESE NATIVES AT SAN VICENTE, CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.

22 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
A striking peculiarity of the town to a stranger is
the cocoa-nut palm, standing tall and distinct against
the sky. Another remarkable production is the silk-
cotton tree, a vegetable giant, with a gigantic scientific
name {Eriodendron anfractuosum). The branches of
this tree grow symmetrically on every side, making a
dome-like top, and the body at the surface of the
ground runs out into broad, thin buttresses, several feet
wide ; so that a horizontal section of the tree near the
ground would present the shape of an irregular star,
having a solid centre four or five feet in diameter, with
rays extending outward several feet more. One of
these trees, standing near the town market, had the
spaces between the buttresses utilized by market women
as temporary store-closets for their reserves of supplies.
Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, although an
English settlement, is a far more foreign place than
either Horta or Porto Grande. A stranger notices at
once the large number of Mohammedans from the inte
rior. They are distinguished by their loose, flowing robes,
white or blue, and the tarboosh, or fez, and a certain
dignity, apparently a concomitant of Islamism. Most
of the inhabitants understand the English language,
and they use a kind of ' pidgin ' English upon occasion ;
of this I could understand the greater part. I tasted
here palm wine for the first time. Its flavor is like
that of a thin, watery cider, with a slight pungency
similar to soda-water.
The zodiac ring, a very interesting article of jewelry,
is manufactured here. Made of unalloyed Guinea gold,
and easily scratched, it is not well adapted for every-

SIERRA LEONE, WEST AFRICA, FREETOWN, FROM THE OLD BARRACKS.

24 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
day wear, though a pretty and unique ornament. The
twelve signs of the zodiac, in rather bold relief, are
arranged in proper order around the ring on a chased
ground three-sixteenths of an inch wide. The whole
width of the ring is five-sixteenths of an inch, and the
part outside of the signs is not chased. The workman
ship is somewhat crude, — the smooth parts showing
faint file-marks even to the unassisted eye, becoming very
obvious under a glass of small magnifying power. The
signs, however, are accurately formed. I have hot been
able to ascertain at what time this peculiar manufac
ture began, nor where the unlettered workmen obtained
their knowledge of these astronomical signs.
The peculiar yellow of the gold and the mysterious
characters thereon produce a certain astrological effect,
which is very comforting in spite of the cold, hard
science of these latter years. No astrologer ever cast
my horoscope, nor set a planetary figure from which
to read glibly my future good or evil fortune ; yet at
times a half-belief in the old, ridiculed science of the
occult influence of the planets comes over me, and then
I look at the zodiac ring on my finger, and exult for a
moment that I wear a talisman which shall bring me
good and ward off evil, even though Mars be combust
and Saturn threatening.
Thursday, 21st November, 31th day out. — The. coaling was
finished late Tuesday night, but the anchor was not lifted until
six o'clock Wednesday morning. From Freetown the course
of the Pensacola was laid nearly west, until a good offing was
made, sufficient' to avoid the shoals extending far out from this
part of the west coast of Africa. A small boat adrift was

STREET SCENE AT FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE.

26 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
sighted about eight o'clock this morning, and our course was
changed so as to approach it near enough for examination. It
proved to be a canoe, stove in at one end. It contained noth
ing ; although a shark prowling around suggested the thought
that he clung to the little wreck in hope of a good dinner, or in
grateful remembrance of a past one.
Wednesday, 21th November, 4:3rd day out. — For four or five
days the weather has been very hot and oppressive. We have
been abreast of the Sahara, and the Harmattan wind brings
torrid heat and a fine dust from the desert. This dust, of
a grayish brown, settles on the vessel in quite appreciable
quantities. The sky is dim with dust-haze, and the horizon
contracted to a small diameter, giving the effect of being shut
in. At ten last evening we reached Elmina, eight miles west
of Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast. The Pensacola will
take in about seventy-five tons of coal at this place, and then
proceed direct to Saint Paul de Loanda, thence ninety miles
farther south to Cape Ledo, where the eclipse camp is to be
established. I went ashore at eight this morning, and had a first sight
of real, unadulterated Africa. The Europeans and things of
European manufacture are not sufficient to change the native
coloring of the picture. The houses are of mud, dried in the
sun. The mud is mixed into a mass about the size of a large
brick, and roughly of the same shape ; this is placed on the
wall, pounded down, smoothed inside and out by the hand, and
when six or eight courses are laid, the builder waits a few days,
until the wall is sufficiently dried to bear the weight of new
courses. When the proper height is reached, round poles,
serving as rafters, are placed on it, and covered with a thatch
of grass, piled on about two feet thick. The grass dries, and
is sunburned in a short time to a dark, dingy brown, giving a
somewhat sombre but wholly picturesque effect. Nearly every
street has a row of cocoanut or date-palm trees on each side,
increasing the unfamiliar and tropical appearance. The wares

= w'^ ;is,j.«|B

HUTS AND COCOANUT, PALMS NEAR THE BEACH, ELMINA, GOLD COAST, WEST AFRICA.

28

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

offered for sale in the market are strange to a Northern eye, —
rough lumps of black, palm-oil soap, yams, bananas, oranges,
limes, pine-apples, palm-wine, Ashanti stools, calabashes, large
and small, ornamented with incised carving of geometrical
figures, monkey and leopard skins, cowrie shells, porcupine
quills, assegais, iron knives, Ashanti pipes, native tobacco,
sugar-cane, and hundreds of other things.

ASHANTI STOOL FROM THE MARKET-PLACE AT ELMINA.

Unlike any other place where the expedition called,
Elmina seemed to have been undiscovered until that
moment. Other places were curious and interesting;
Elmina alone appeared to me to have been hidden from
civilized man until the Pensacola dropped anchor in

THE GOLD COAST.

29

its harbor. I cannot in any way account for this feel
ing. As I wandered through the streets under the
shade of magnificent date-palm and silk-cotton trees,
I seemed to be walking in a city whose founding was
coeval with the pyramids of Egypt. I had somehow
lost the historical perspective, and applied my mental
eye to the wrong end of time's telescope, throwing the
place far back into the morning of history. The

FORT SAINT GEORGE d' ELMINA, GOLD COAST, WEST AFRICA.

playful shouting of bathers on the beach came to my
ears as strange and foreign as would the merry cry of
children splashing in the Nile, what time Pharaoh's
daughter and her maidens went down to the river and
discovered the future lawgiver of Israel hidden in his
ark of bulrushes. It was like walking in a dream of
antiquity. I could discover no reason for this apparent
transposition of the centuries. The place was no older
than others we had seen ; but no other gave me such an

30 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
idea of enormous age, — of an existence hoary with
years, even before the advent of modern civilization.
But I continued my examination of the place, half
expecting to meet at any time the glittering procession
of some Assyrian or other long-forgotten monarch.
In one of the side streets I saw an old woman sitting
in the doorway of a little hut. Judging from her
wrinkled parchment skin, and total absence of flesh on
her bones, she must have been at least a hundred years
old. She looked too withered and weak to move, or even
to sit upright. Her bleared eyes, apparently sightless,
were staring at vacancy. But she had a weird surprise
in store for me. No sooner did those ancient eyes rest
on me than she rose to her feet as suddenly as if lifted
by a released spring. Raising her fleshless arms above
her head, she began to dance, accompanying her steps
with a monotonous chant, not musical but impressive.
The exhibition at first seemed ludicrous, then it became
painful, but at last, what enchantment was this ? I
felt an impulse almost irresistible to join in the dance.
Strange pictures flitted across my brain of deep jungles,
lion-haunted and dark ; native towns shaded by vast
trees under whose branches warriors were gathering to
the sound of the drum ; the cry of battle ; the mourning
over the slain. All these pictures seemed forced on my
consciousness, and were as vivid and clear as if actually
present to my bodily senses. As siiddenly as she had
risen, giving no warning of her intent, so suddenly
she stopped, resumed her seat on the door-step, and
wrinkles and age and decrepitude fell again upon her
like cerements of the grave. I believe that some

-»s?

.'\ ft*
ft

NATIVE HUTS AND COCOANUT PALMS AT ELMINA.

32 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
mesmeric power held me for the moment in its grasp,
and transferred memory-pictures from the old woman's
mind to my own. I felt as the Roman general did in
Mason's Caractacus, who, finding his way during the
absence of the priests to the gloomy grove and the
bloody sacrificial altar where the Druids practised their
cruel and mysterious rites, thought there must be some
truth or power behind it all : —
'  tell me else
Why do these haunts of barb'rous superstition
O'ercome me thus? I scorn them — yet they awe me.'
Thursday, 28th November, 4.4th day out.- — I went ashore
early this morning with Captain Yates and Professor Todd.
We called at the office of the American Consul, Mr G. E.
Eminsang, who was to act as interpreter in an interview we
were to have with King Andoh.
Quanco Andoh is the Ashanti king who rendered very valu
able service to General Woolsley and Captain Wood in the
Ashanti War. He is a noble-looking man, fully six feet and
four inches in height, and finely proportioned. We preceded
the king up a narrow flight of stone stairs, and were ushered
into a bare, dirty room, having a long table in the middle,,
taking up a great part of the space. At one end of the apart
ment, under a lithograph portrait of George Washington, was
a large stuffed arm-chair, — the king's seat of state. This he
insisted should be occupied by Captain Yates, while he himself
took a chair at the opposite end of the table. The Chief of the
Expedition was seated at Captain Yates's right, while I occu
pied a chair on his left. Lying at the king's feet was a man
who seemed to be acting in the capacity of body-servant, or
foot-warmer ; for during our interview he would from time to
time take the king's feet alternately in his hands as if to warm

THE GOLD COAST. 33
them, or to protect them from too rough contact with the floor.
On the table was a long staff with a gold head, on which was
engraved an inscription setting forth that the staff was pre
sented to King Andoh for distinguished services rendered to
the English. Beside the staff were two gold-handled, cimeter-
like swords of native manufacture. The blades were evi
dently iron, not steel; but the gold handles were curiously
and richly wrought in heavy chasing and strange arabesque
devices. After some conversation the consul proceeded by the king's
order to prepare a champagne cocktail after the following recipe :
two bottles of champagne, two bottles of ginger beer, one bottle
of soda. Before tasting this, the king wished us to try some corn
beer, his favorite beverage. Goblets were brought, and a por
tion poured out for each. It had a pleasant acid taste with a
sub-flavor of grape sugar. It was milky in appearance, and
about as thick as cream. Having disposed of this, the consul
began to dispense the cocktail, while the king rose, and with
his own hands removed the goblets we had used for the corn
beer. It is seldom that more civilized rulers make themselves
so useful.
Afterward a pasteboard box was brought in and set on the
floor. In it was another and smaller box, pasteboard likewise.
This was placed on the table, and when opened disclosed a cap,
or perhaps it was the crown. It was made of some kind of
skin, unlined; the inside was covered with characters, traced
with ink or black paint, and they bore a distant resemblance to
the cuneiform Assyrian letters. On the outside were eight nar
row strips of dark leather, radiating from the top of the crown
to the rim. Upon these strips were fastened gems set in gold.
The strip extending from the top to the back of the cap was
prolonged beyond the rim, into a sort of queue or tail three or
four inches long, projecting over the back of the wearer's neck.
With a little show of pride, pardonable under the circumstances,

34 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
the king placed it on his head. I doubt whether any European
potentate could present a more kingly appearance than this
noble-looking man in his barbaric cap. With an exhibition of
good taste I hardly looked for, he removed the cap from his
head in a moment, which took away all appearance of vanity,
and placed the act where it properly belonged, to the kindness
of a host entertaining his guests. After receiving some little
gifts from the king as souvenirs of our visit, we took leave and
departed on an exploring tour of the town.
In one place I came upon a pottery manufactory. No
machinery is used, but the potter — potteress would be the
truer term, for all labor here except boat-rowing is performed
by women — placed a lump of wet clay on the ground, and,
stooping over it, gradually shaped it with thumb and finger
into a broad shallow dish. This is sun-dried, then rubbed over
with some substance giving a soap-stone lustre, and finally
baked in a little furnace, coming out a shining black.
The coal supplied to the Pensacola here was artificial fuel.
It is pressed into large blocks, weighing, or supposed to weigh,
twenty-five pounds each. This fuel was taken from the store
house down to the beach and put into boats by women, who
carried on their heads four blocks at a load, — nearly one
hundred pounds. Truly, the ' Woman's Bights ' question is
thoroughly settled in Africa. In that happy country the
women are not only permitted, but are even required, to
do all the work, while the men rest themselves or go
fishing. The coaling was finished late in the afternoon, and at forty
minutes past eight the anchor was tripped, and we squared away
for Saint Paul de Loanda. Professor Todd decided not to estab
lish an eclipse station far in the interior, as at first intended.
There has been so much delay in reaching the latitude of totality
that he has concluded to set up the camp at Cape Ledo, about
ninety miles south of Saint Paul, immediately on the coast,

THE GOLD COAST. 35
enabling the observers to sleep on the Pensacola, and avoiding
in this way the principal danger to health.
Monday, 2nd December, 48th day out. — This morning at
five o'clock we crossed the equator. Neither the equator nor
ourselves received the slightest injury.
Wednesday, 4th December, 50th day out. — At seven o'clock
this morning the ocean was slightly but unmistakably dis
colored, and four hours later was dark brown. This effect is
due to the Congo water, although we are eighty miles from
the coast.
Thursday, 5th December, 51st day out. — To-day we came
abreast the mouth of the Congo Eiver. A very interesting
fact appears regarding the form of the ocean bottom. For a
long distance before coming opposite the mouth of this stream,
the soundings showed a quite uniform depth of thirty-five
fathoms. Immediately off the mouth no bottom was found
at one hundred and forty-seven fathoms, two miles farther
the depth was again thirty-five fathoms ; so that opposite
the mouth of the magnificent Congo, there is a deep cleft or
canon in the ocean floor about two miles wide, and having
certainly a depth of more than one hundred and forty-seven
fathoms. Forty-eight hours before reaching this river the
ocean was colored a dark brown from the immense amount
of water poured into the sea by the great river. Forty-four
minutes after crossing the deep place opposite the mouth, the
ocean returned to its normal blue-green color, showing that
in this latitude a strong current sweeps northward along
the coast.
Upon landing at Saint Paul de Loanda, Professor
Todd found that the Rio Quanza steamer sailing bi
weekly for Muxima had left two days previously, and
that recent washouts along the line of the Caminho de
Ferro Trans- Africano made it impracticable for the

36

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

expedition to reach either Muxima or Cunga (at one
of which places Professor Todd had at first proposed to
locate the eclipse camp) in time for mounting and
adjusting the instruments.
This confirmed him in his plan, already made pro
visionally, of establishing the camp at Cape Ledo.

&

PIPE PRESENTED TO THE CHIEF OF THE EXPEDITION
BY KING QUANCO ANDOH.

SAINT PAUL DE LOANDA AND THE HARBOR.

CHAPTER III.
SAINT PAUL DE LOANDA. — CAPE LEDO AND THE
TOTAL ECLIPSE.  ALONG THE WEST COAST. 
PHOSPHORESCENCE. — THE SOUTHERN NIGHT SKY.
flATUBDAY, 1th December, 53rd day out. —
The Pensacola dropped anchor at Saint Paul
de Loanda at half-past ten last evening. I
went ashore for a short time this morning;
but our stay at this port was very brief, merely
long enough to get permission to land and
put up our gravity and magnetic instruments, set the ob
servers and their baggage ashore, when the anchor was lifted
and the vessel headed for Cape Ledo. We hear that the gen
tlemen of the English eclipse expedition, also, have selected
Cape Ledo for their observing station, and that a British naval
vessel is lying at that point.
I saw little of Saint Paul de Loanda in the hour
and a half spent there ; but although I think the
town has no sewers, the cleanliness of the streets is
particularly noticeable.
We left our naturalists there, who were to proceed up
the Quanza River forty or fifty miles to procure speci
mens of various kinds for the National Museum. They
hoped to shoot a hippopotamus and have the skeleton
prepared by the time the Pensacola returned to Lo
anda from Cape Ledo.

VIEW IN THE INTERIOR OF ANGOLA, ON THE RIO BENGO.
Along the line of the Caminho de Ferro Trans-Africano.

40

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

The water of the Quanza and Bengo is used for
drinking, but it must be carefully filtered before it is
really potable. Large filters of unglazed clay are used,
holding two or three barrels. The unglazed one, filled
with water, is placed on another of equal size, but glazed
so as to be water tight. The water
slowly percolates and drips into the
lower vessel, cool and clear. But
I confess to doubts as to the com
plete purity of the fluid even after
filtration. Sunday, 8th December, 54th day out. —
At two o'clock this afternoon we an
chored about three miles from the rocky
headland of Cape Ledo. This bold
promontory is probably five hundred
feet high, nearly perpendicular for a
third of its height, from which point a
talus of disintegrated rock slopes to the
water level. The anchorage is merely
an open roadstead, protected somewhat
on the southwest by Cape Ledo itself and on the northeast by
a rocky point extending for a mile or more into the ocean.
On the curving beach between these points the grand surf
rolls its ' hollow ocean ridges ' in a never-ceasing thunder.
We found the English gunboat, H. M. S. Bramble, Captain
Langdon, B. N., at anchor here. Camp is already established,
with instruments in position and everything in readiness for
the eclipse. Captain Langdon came aboard the Pensacola this
afternoon with Mr. Taylor, the astronomer of the English
expedition. About half-past three Professor Todd and myself went ashore
to select a site for the station. Mr Taylor, chief of the English

QUANZA WATER-FILTER.

<m%

........ -i

THE ENGLISH ECLIPSE CAMP AT CAPE LEDO, ANGOLA.

42

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

expedition, accompanied us, and before examining the ground
we visited the English camp, where all seemed in perfect order.
We found a place near the shore very convenient for landing,
which Professor Todd decided immediately to occupy.
The beach of fine, snow-white sand is beautiful, sweeping
in a. grand curve from the bold promontory of Cape Ledo
on the southwest, two or three miles to the northeast, ter
minating at a point of dark rocks, jutting out into the water,
their bases always lapped in feathery foam dashed from the

BEACH AT CAPE LEDO, ANGOLA, WEST AFRICA.
crests of the breakers which beat eternally on the whole--
western coast of Africa.
Through these breakers all of our delicate and costly instru
ments are to be landed.
Monday, 9th December, 55th day out. — It rained hard this
morning, with a great deal of lightning ; but, the sky clearing
before noon, we sent ashore several boatloads of portable-.-
houses, tents, boxes of instruments, and other material.

¦

VIEW IN THE INTERIOR. TRANS-AFRICAN RAILWAY.

44 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Six tents were pitched at once, for the accommodation of
a file of marines who are to guard the camp night and day.
We began immediately to construct the piers for the transit
instrument with stones selected from the beach. The founda
tions were sunk several feet below the surface, and the piers,
raised to the proper height, were topped with a capstone of
artificial granite. When the piers were finished,- the frame of
the house was erected over them, the roof put on, and the
instrument mounted. The frame of another house was put
up the same afternoon, and roofed with canvas.
Landing the instruments through the surf caused
Professor Todd great anxiety. Many of them would
have been rendered useless by being wet, and it was
necessary to handle all with great care. The ponder
ous polar axis, upon which twenty-four different in
struments were to be mounted, presented no difficulty,
except its weight; but the great driving-clock, the
motive power for moving the polar axis with its load
of two dozen instruments, would have been entirely
ruined by water, as would the pneumatic commutator
which was to open shutters, shift sensitive plates, and
do automatically the work of twenty-four observers.
How carefully and constantly the surf was watched
both from the camp and the Pensacola ! Although
the breakers never subside entirely, they vary in energy
from time to time, and we waited for an interval of
comparative quiet to land the clock and commutator.
At last a boat came off to the vessel, and reported the
surf less than at any time since reaching Cape Ledo.
The two instruments, wrapped many days before in
sail-cloth and tarpaulin to be instantly ready for the

¦' til

r;--

SAINT PAUL DE LOANDA, WEST AFRICA.

46 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
favorable moment, were at once lowered into the boat,
rowed to the beach, and landed without a drop of water
touching even the wrappings, thanks to the care and
skill of the Pensacola 's officers. I fancy that a load of
anxiety equal at least to the combined- weight of the
two instruments was lifted from Professor Todd's heart
when he saw them safely put down on the sand above
the reach of the surf.
The time before eclipse day was getting very short,
and every one worked with a will. The portable
houses were all up, and with the six tents occupied
by the marines made the camp look like a young
but thrifty mining-town. The sailors performed the
unaccustomed duties assigned them quite cheerfully,
carrying stones from the beach for piers and founda
tions ; digging and riprapping ditches to turn possible
storm-water away from the camp, and numberless
other labors not usually included in sailor duty; but
they took to the exercise kindly and with a minimum
of growling. One man, after working industriously at
the excavations for the polar-axis piers, stopped, wiped
his forehead with his shirt-sleeve, and like Silas Wegg
dropped into poetry : —
' I never did such work, or worked so hard, by thunder !
As fixing up these houses to see a scientific wonder ;
I 'd rather work at home on the old farm,
For then I 'd get my breakfast and do no harm ;
But now we work in Africa with crowbar, pick, and shovel,
Digging on ditches, and get tired as the devil.'
As a spontaneous outburst of poetical improvisation,
produced under an African sun and after wielding a

¦*kr

_,  i

LANDING OF HEAVY INSTRUMENTS AT CAPE LEDO.

48

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

heavy pickaxe for two hours, it seems creditable and
-worthy of preservation; and I have no doubt he ex
pressed the sentiments of many of his brother sailors.
Tliursday, 12th December, 58th day out. — This is a lonely
but lovely region, and apparently quite uninhabited. The
country inland is rolling, or it might perhaps be called hilly,

VEGETATION NEAR ECLIPSE CAMP, CAPE LEDO.

with little or none of the wild luxuriance of vegetation com
monly associated with the tropics. It is semi-arid, yet far
from being a desert. The plants are tropical in character, but
the general appearance of the region is that of the temperate
zone. The Northern eye is first attracted by the tall, cactus
like euphorbias, with their angular trunks and tops of dark-
green, fleshy leaves ; the lofty palms crowned with fan-shaped,

THE BLUFF, CAPE LEDO, WEST AFRICA.

50

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

rustling foliage, the dead leaves still adhering to the trunk,
hanging down in a vast spheroidal mass, in color and shape
exactly like an enormous hornets' nest ; and the gigantic
baobab, with a trunk (I measured one) thirty-five feet in
circumference at the base, tapering rapidly upward to the
point where the branches are thrown out. Its foliage is light
green, among which appear the long-stemmed flowers, pure

r

s

*" '¦ * ^TBW*5asH

% ''v.. ;:* :%?KJB

foj»'yj*ifo '*¥£? :'-"^CPB|

(
*
¦:Wk
'
WJ|!ffi^:i'
BAOBABS NEAR THE ECLIPSE CAMP, CAPE LEDO.
white as the magnolia, but without fragrance, the pistil pro
longed for six or seven inches, and ending in a crowded sphere
of stamens, two inches in diameter. These are all attractive
to the stranger, not alone because of their unfamiliarity, but
for their rare beauty as well. The level ground above the
beach, and below the cliffs, is covered by a creeping, dark-
green plant, having pinnated foliage almost hidden by the
multitude of delicate, primrose-yellow blossoms. These
-.'.""'

BAOBAB TREE AND DETACHMENT OF PENSACOLA'S CREW.

52

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

flowers are very sensitive to light. They rejoice in the hot
African sunshine, but close their tender petals at sunset, and
even during the day when the sun is obscured by dense
clouds. The region abounds in game. Every morning on the beach
there were fresh tracks of leopards that came down at night
to dig in the sand for the eggs of the green turtle, and they

PALMS NEAR ECLIPSE CAMP, CAPE LEDO.

were accompanied by jackals and wild-cats, in the hope, no
doubt, to share the feast. Our hunters shot several antelope,
and in their search for game came across the spoor of the
eland and other kinds of deer. I was much disappointed not
to see a deer at which one of the officers fired ; circumstances,
not clearly explained, preventing his bringing it in.
The Cape Ledo oysters are delicious in flavor and gigantic
in size. I made a sufficient lunch on a single one. This

w<u E-<

54 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
statement will appear less like the account of a shipwrecked
sailor starving in his boat, when the dimensions of the crea
ture are noted, — nine inches long and four and a quarter wide.
These measurements are of the oyster itself ; the shell is a little
more than twelve inches long and six and a half wide. I
retain the shell, for a curio, a souvenir, and — a voucher.
The rocks are stratified, and were once horizontal, but have
been upheaved, haying now a dip of twenty-five or thirty
degrees to the north. Between the rocky headlands on the
northeast side of the roadstead, the cliffs are of red and yel
low clay disposed in strata which dip about twenty degrees to
north and south of a well-defined anticlinal axis. The strata
differ in hardness, the softer weathering out more rapidly than
the harder, leaving projections, or shelves, which give a curi
ously artificial appearance to the face of the cliff, like courses
of Titanic masonry. In one place the bold, jutting end of
what was once a promontory is isolated from the cliff behind
it by a deep gorge eroded, by centuries of rainfall.. This vast
mass, composed, like the cliff, of strata of differing densities,
is nearly circular in horizontal section, and the harder pro
jecting strata making an angle with the horizon of about
twenty, degrees, give the effect of a gigantic spiral stairway,
reaching from bottom to top ; and the whole might well be the
very original from which the representations of the tower of
Babel were drawn, as shown in 'First Beaders ' of two or
three generations ago.
We were visited later by eight natives, members of
the Quissama tribe. They were armed with old flint
lock muskets, ornamented from butt to muzzle with
narrow strips of brass, encircling stock and barrel,
fastened to the stock with old-fashioned, convex-
headed brass nails, such as were formerly used on
hair-covered trunks. Their dress was much more re-

- ?• r. i?

i ,-V v~+ t

"i

¦ .W'*i ^f »*T|« ¦HP** fe- "' iL,^ '-, a -J ;-'¦--. W'^- "'••*l* -'-^ •%f" » r #

CANNIBAL VISITORS AT THE ECLIPSE CAMP, CAPE LEDO.

56 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
markable for its perfect adaptation to a tropical climate
than for either quantity or complexity.
Some were clothed in the skin of a small wildcat,
tied around the waist and hanging down in front ;
some had progressed so far in civilization as to have
become the owner (judging from the dirt, probably
by inheritance from some great-grandfather) of a piece
of Portuguese calico. Their hair was done into innu
merable little braids, terminating at the same level, the
end of eaclr braid ornamented with the scarlet seed of
the African acacia. The effect was that of a string of
beads tied around the head. Their teeth, solid and
white as ivory, were chipped to a point, which in bar
baric heraldry shows their pure descent from, and
present good standing in, the noble tribe of cannibals.
I saw them, indeed, examining our party of astronomers
with furtive glances, as if selecting that one among us
best fitted by his rounded outlines for their friendly
purpose ; and their expression of disappointment at the
astronomic leanness of the expedition did not change
until their eyes rested on one of the naval officers,
whose bones were so hidden in juicy flesh that his form
showed no angles or abrupt points, but only sweeping
curves of well-nourished muscle. Unfortunately for
their design, this officer was armed with a repeating
rifle. It is not always entirely disadvantageous that
astronomy and adipose are incompatible.
One native came to me, and patting his belly gave a
lugubrious groan to signify his hunger and his wish for
a gift of food. Another threw back his head and went
through the pantomime of drinking, and, without the

CAPE LEDO. 57
assistance of a Quissama phrase-book, I interpreted this
to mean, ' Give me rum.'
While putting up the transit house, one of our odor
ous visitors, urged by curiosity, approached the spot
and hindered the workmen. With a majestic motion
I waved him away ; but as he only laughed, I saw at
once that a crisis had arrived, that stronger measures
than majestic wavings must be taken immediately.
Stepping to a tripod on which happened to stand a
ship's portable compass, I lifted the handle by which
it is carried and gazed sternly through the harmless
wire at the offending savage. With an agility which
would not have discredited an antelope of his native
hills, the gentle cannibal bounded away and hid behind
his fellows. I was more successful than Bumble ; the
native could not ' stand such a eye as that.'
As I looked at our barbaric visitors, not so well pro
vided for the exigencies of life as the very animals
they hunted, I involuntarily contrasted them with the
civilized man of America and Europe. The enormous
difference represented the accumulated effect of a hun
dred centuries of laborious effort to ameliorate and
subdue unfavorable environment ; to understand and
use natural laws for the benefit and uplifting of the
race. Why had this people been left so far behind in
the growth of improvement ? Were they merely the
soil from which sprang the mighty tree of intellectual
progress, whose branches to-day overspread nearly the
whole earth; the chips scattered by the sculptor as
he painfully carved, through the slow centuries, the
statue of civilization ?

58 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
It is not at all probable that one of the dusky look
ers-on at our preparations had a remote idea of the
approaching phenomenon, and certainly not of the ob
ject of our arrangements. Could we have used their
language, it might have been possible to make them
understand that in a day or two the sun would be dark
ened for a few minutes, and a gloom like night spread
over the landscape ; but no effort could have given them
the slightest comprehension of the cause of the unusual
darkness, nor why the white man should come so far
to look at it.
Such appliances of civilization as they had procured
from the Portuguese were only those useful in supply
ing imperative daily wants. Their long-barrelled guns
and iron-bladed knives were of assistance in killing and
cutting up the wild animals furnishing their food ; and
in a few cases a bit of calico took the place in their
scanty dress of the more natural material, the skin of
some beast slain by mediaeval musket or trapped in a
primitive pitfall.
Yet, low as these tribes are in the intellectual scale,
they have what may be called a literature. Their
observation of surrounding things is necessarily close
and continuous, their very existence depending on
knowing thoroughly the habits of animals, the succes
sion of seasons, plants useful, edible, or poisonous.
Any unusual event disturbing the monotony of barbaric
life, — a storm of extraordinary violence; a failure of
rain in the wet season, or its occurrence during the
dry; the disappearance, temporary or permanent, of
animals of the chase ; an eclipse of sun or moon, — any

»*tea

is*

,-«*»*

•_J»

CANNIBAL VISITORS AT CAPE LEDO.

60 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
of these or similar events would be strongly impressed
on the savage mind, and passed down to each succeed
ing generation as legend or tradition. In the absence
of a knowledge of writing, experience of this kind can
only be preserved orally. Descending through many
ages, every fable and legend gains in picturesqueness
and color through accretions contributed by each nar
rator, until a body of folk-lore results, exceedingly in
teresting, for it embodies primitive ideas of life and
nature; and more or less of the history of the tribe
or people is hidden in the story, and can be read be
tween the lines, as it were, by a skilful interpreter.
The philologist of our expedition has recently issued
through the American Folk-Lore Society a large collec
tion of 'Folk-Tales of Angola.' Living several years
in that country, he has become familiar with many of
the dialects of the region, and from the natives, both
educated and ignorant, has gathered hundreds of prov
erbs, songs, and folk-tales.
I give two of the tales as translated from the Ki-
mbundu by Mr Chatelain.
The following tale explains to the satisfaction of the
Ki-mbundu mind why the turtle lives in the water : —
MAN AND TURTLE.
Let me tell of Turtle of Koka.
Man of Lubi la Suku caught a Turtle in the bush ; he came
with it to the village. They said : " Let us kill it ! " Some
people said : " How shall we kill it ? " They said : " We shall
cut it with hatchets." Turtle replied, saying, —
" Turtle of Koka,
And hatchet of Koka :
Hatchet not kills me a bit."

CAPE LEDO. 61
The people said : " What shall we kill him with ? " Some
said : " We shall kill him with stones." Turtle, fear grasped
him ; he said : "lam going to die." He says by mouth, —
" Turtle of Koka,
And stone of Koka:
Stone will not kill me a bit."
The people said : " Let us cast him into the fire ! " Turtle
said, — " Turtle of Koka
And fire of Koka :
Fire will not kill me a bit.
On my back
It is like stone,
Nor there can
Catch on fire."
The people said : " We will kill him with knives." Turtle
said, — " Turtle of Koka,
And knife of Koka :
Knife will not kill me a bit."
The people said : " This fellow how shall we do ? how shall
we kill him ? " These said : " Let us cast him into the depth
of water." Turtle said : " Woe ! I shall die there ! How shall
I do ? " The people said : " We have it ! We have found the
way we can kill him ! "
They carry him ; they arrive with him at the river. They
cast him into the depth. Turtle dives ; (after) a while he
emerges. There he is swimming and singing, —
" In water, in my home !
In water, in my home ! "
The people said : " Oh, Turtle has fooled us. We were
going to kill him with hatchets ; he says, ' Hatchet will not
kill me a bit.' We spoke of casting him into the, water; he

62 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
says, ' I am going to die.5 We came, we cast him ' into the
water ; but we saved him."
(This is) what caused the Turtle to live in the water : the
people were going to kill him ; (but) he was shrewd.
END.

The tale of ' Hare and Leopard ' recalls some of
' Bre'r Rabbit's ' shrewdness, which seems no less in
Africa than in America. HARE AND LEOPARD.
Hare plaited his long basket, saying: "I will go to bind
squashes in the field."
He started ; he arrives in middle of road. He meets with
Mr. Leopard. Mr. Leopard says : " Thou, Hare, thou art cour
ageous. This whole basket here ? Where dost thou go with
it ? " Hare said : " Lord, lam going to bind a few small squashes
in the fields." Mr. Leopard said : " Thou ! indeed, the basket
is bigger than thou ; if it be full of squashes, how wilt thou
carry it?"
Hare said : " Lord, if (it be) thou thyself, I am able to
carry thee ! " Mr. Leopard said : " Thou, Hare, art presump
tuous. If thou givest me up, what may I do to thee ? " Hare
said : " Lord, beat me."
Mr. Leopard gets into the basket. Hare said : " Lord, when
I fasten the ropes to the basket, do not shriek ; but beware
of falling on the ground." Mr. Leopard said : " All right."
Hare took a rope ; he tells Mr. Leopard, saying : " Lord, stretch
(thyself) out well." Mr. Leopard stretched out ; Hare bound.
He takes off his hatchet from waist ; he knocks (with) it Mr.
Leopard on the head. Mr. Leopard says : " Thou, Hare, how
dost thou mean to treat me ? " Hare said : " You do hate us."
Hare hits him again ; Mr. Leopard dies.

CAPE LEDO. 63
Hare flayed him; he returns to his house. He ate his
meat; lived on.
I have told the little story. Finished.
Like all folk-lore, these tales express the hopes and
fears of the common people ; their ideas of justice, re
venge, shrewdness, and honesty. As the hare conquered
the leopard by his humble demeanor and skill in lying,
so would any one of these people overcome his enemy by
the same questionable means. Yet I doubt whether the
use of such means is wholly confined to Africa.
Saturday, 14th December, 60th day out. — An incident oc
curred this evening, singular and rather ludicrous finally,
though it appeared serious enough at the time. A system of
signals had been established by which immediate communi
cation could be made between ship and camp, by flag during
the day, and colored lights at night. At half-past seven an
alarm was started on the Pensacola that a green and then a
red star had been shown from the camp. Instantly the vessel
was the scene of unwonted activity. Orders were given to
lower all the boats ; the musket lockers were opened, and guns
and cartridges served out ; the surgeons were ready with cases
of instruments, bandages, and all necessary appliances for
amputation, dressing wounds, etc. The little flotilla carrying
warriors and surgeons started for the camp ; but before the
boats were out of the shadow of the Pensacola, another boat
returning to the vessel from the shore brought word that all
was quiet at the camp, and that their signals were merely in
answer to our own. Then an investigation was had as to the
cause of the alarm and its origin. It appeared that two of
the junior lieutenants saw a green light at the camp, as they
thought, and gave the alarm. The green light was seen by
other persons on the vessel, and was referred at once to the

64 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
true cause, — a brilliant green meteor ! a sufficiently astronomi
cal origin for a false alarm, to make it eminently fitting for an
astronomical expedition. The reported red light, it appeared
on inquiry, no one had seen ; probably it was an imaginative
addition, put in to make the situation more real and dramatic.
During the short interval while the cause of the alarm
was unknown, the thoughts of those on board the Pensacola
were painfully active. Twenty-five or thirty natives had
visited the camp the day before ; how far the news of our
presence had spread into the interior, and what numbers of
the wild men of Africa might come down under cover of night
to assault the camp, of course we could not know. The very
absence of all noise from the shore was thought to mean that
the natives were using knives and knob-kerries, instead of
guns, in order to avoid alarming the ship. The first and most
painful feeling was for the men, but we could not help think
ing of the many thousand dollars' worth of instruments
exposed to the hands of a barbarous, and ignorant enemy.
Fortunately the suspense was short, and we did not have to
change the opinion we had formed, of the peaceful character
of our native visitors. It would seem that our African alarms
were always destined to have a similar lame and impotent
conclusion. Two nights before this, the sentinel at the camp
heard something, man or animal, prowling around near the
tents. Beceiving no answer to his challenge, he fired his mus
ket, arousing the whole force ; a skirmish line was thrown out,
and the bushes searched, but nothing was found. In the morn
ing the ground was examined, and the track of a small jackal
found ! Parturiunt montes et nascitur ridiculus — canis aureus.
Sunday, 22d December, 68th day out. — Now everything is
ready, and all depends on the weather. The polar axis is
loaded with its crowd of instruments, all looking up to that
part of the sky where the sun will be at the time of totality.
The dark room at the rear end of the instruments is completed,
and every ray of light shut out. The direct photoheliograph,

OUR MARINE GUARD AND THEIR TENTS AT CAPE LEDO.

66 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
forty feet in length, located on the side of the hill, about fifty
yards from the polar-axis house, supported on three long spars,
looks like a huge derrick. This instrument is to be manipu
lated by Professor Bigelow, who has devised a most ingenious
sand-clock for easily and accurately following the sun. The
eye-end is enclosed in a dark room, and photographs are to be
taken, — clouds permitting.
On the voyage the local mean times of the four contacts
were computed, and are taken from Professor Todd's Bulletin
No. 4, as follows : — h. m. 8.
Beginning of eclipse ... 1 29 55.1
Beginning of totality ... 2 56 1.4
End of totality  2 59 10.8
End of eclipse  4 12 37.9
I quote from Expedition Bulletin No. 12, by Professor
Todd, to give an idea of what extensive preparations
were made : —
'H. M. S. Bramble was at Cape Ledo on a mission like that of the
Pensacola, and attending upon the English Eclipse Expedition in charg®
of A. Taylor, Esq., F. R. A. S. ; and through the courtesy of her con>
manding officer, Captain Langdon, R. N., advantage was taken of her
run to Saint Paul de Loanda and return, December 14-17, to make a
chronometric determination of the longitude, by comparison with the
time at Loanda as determined by Mr Preston, who was left there by thg
expedition for gravity and magnetic work. Also, on the Bramble's second
return to Loanda the 23rd of December, another comparison was made.
' Professor Abbe was in charge of the meteorological work and of the
organization of parties of observers from the ship's company. A large
amount of valuable material results from his work.
' The mounting and adjustment of the extensive apparatus for the
total eclipse, I reserved for myself. A duplex polar axis eleven feet in
length had been constructed of six-inch iron tubings, and mounted with
great stability. This axis was driven by powerful clock-work of extreme
precision, made by Mr Saegmuller of Washington.
' On this single axis was mounted the totality battery, consisting of
two Brashear reflecting-telescopes of eight inches' diameter, four Clark

THE TOTAL ECLIPSE. 67
telescopes of three and a half, five, seven and a quarter, and eight inches'
aperture, the second being rigged with an eye-piece enlarging the sun's
image to a diameter of four and a haK inches, the third being used as a
high-power directing telescope, while the fourth, a photographic doublet
with ten-inch back lens, loaned by the Harvard College Observatory,
was arranged for a series of twelve exposures, two of which were made
through an orthochromatizing screen provided by Mr Carbutt; two
six-inch . Dallmeyer rapid rectilinear lenses of twenty-four and thirty-
eight inches' focus ; one Schroeder triple objective of six inches' aperture
and twenty-one inches' focus ; two flint spectroscopes and one quartz
spectroscope loaned by Harvard College Observatory, a duplex photo
meter of seventy-five inches' focus, also provided by Professor Pickering,
and his reversing layer spectroscope for photographing a spectrum trail
for fifteen seconds both before and after second and third contacts ; a
five-inch Ross lens of forty-two-inch focus ; a four-inch Spencer objec
tive of thirty-six-inch focus and a six-and-four-tenths-inch Merz-Clark
objective, both rigged with the means of automatic variation of aperture
during totality ; and lastly, two duplex cameras provided by Dr Wright
of the Sloane Laboratory of Yale University, for photographic record of
the polarization of the corona. In all there were twenty-three objectives
and two mirrors, with their axes adjusted into parallelism.
' With the exception of the Gundlach camera, which was reserved for
a special investigation of the extreme outer corona, all this apparatus
was operated automatically, by an adaptation of the pneumatic organ-
valve system of Mr Merritt Gaily of New York. Exposing shutters were
opened and closed, sensitized plates were exchanged for others as soon
as exposed, and all the mechanical movements were accomplished with
entire precision. Also, by employing an ordinary chronograph in con
junction with the valve system, the exact time of beginning and end of
each exposure became a matter of accurate record.
' All this apparatus was brought into operation during the period of
total eclipse, and over three hundred exposures were made in a period of
three minutes and ten seconds ; but no photographs of the corona were
secured, as the sun was completely obscured by clouds.
'With the direct photoheliograph, however, very gratifying success
was secured. Seventy pictures of the partial phases were made before
totality, and forty after. The serious obstacles to the operation of so
long a tube were successfully overcome by means of a skeleton mount
ing, a combined form of an equatorial stand and tripod ; and Professor
Bigelow's sand-clock enabled the precise and easy following of the
sun.'

68 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
The morning sky was clouded, and about nine o'clock
a few drops of rain fell ; but for several days the sky
had been cloudy until nearly noon, clearing at that time
and remaining clear until sunset. Soon after ten, some
patches of blue sky were seen, and the sun appeared at
intervals. An hour later the sky overhead was par
tially clear ; that is, light cirro-cumulus covered about
one half of the sky from the zenith to, perhaps, within
forty degrees of the horizon.
At forty-five minutes past noon the sky was perfectly
clear in that part of the western sky where the sun
would be at the time of totality; but at eighteen
minutes past one the clouds in the same region had
thickened considerably, although in other directions
there were large patches of blue sky. At thirty-five
minutes past one a rift in the clouds permitted the
sun to be seen, with the moon well on its disk. At
seven minutes past two the clouds in the immediate
vicinity of the sun seemed a little thinner, but were
still dense enough to hide it completely. Forty-eight
minutes past two the light assumed an unusual appear
ance, portentous and threatening.
Looked at as a mere spectacle, the clouds enhanced
the impressiveness of the eclipse. At first came a slight
dimming of the light, so slight that it was difficult to
determine whether it was real or only fancied. The
next half minute resolved the doubt. Darker and
more weird grew the scene. A vessel eight or ten
miles away, whose sails had shown glittering white
against the horizon, suddenly vanished. A flock of
carrion crows hurrying from seaward as if bewildered,

H '¦:*

¥%s

~i

m

-If -

m

#m«#.

;- g%i

p*

,

d

.-.'¦gldl

*-#4' % 0

1%X.

BLUFFS AND VEGE'TATION NEAR THE BEACH, CAPE LEDO.

70 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
flew over the hill seeking for a place to perch. Some
wydah birds which had been incessantly calling each
other ceased their cries. Then on the horizon a little
south of west appeared a frightful darkness, and at
fifty-five minutes past two, as the light suddenly grew
less, over the sea rushed this blue-black shadow of the
moon. All that I had ever heard or read of dark days,
tornadoes, volcanic eruptions of ashes, or other violent
disturbances of the ordinary course of nature, flashed
through my mind, and all seemed to be concentrated in
that terrible approaching gloom. I involuntarily bent
myself to the ground to avoid the first rush of the
storm, knowing all the while that the air was still, and
the apparent hurricane a shadow. Totality was upon
us, but the light at the darkest moment was sufficiently
strong to permit ordinary print to be easily read. The
next moment a pale lemon-yellow light, like that of
early morning dawning in a thinly clouded sky, rose in
the southwest, the' sunlight swept rapidly over, flooding
everything, and the landscape resumed its natural ap
pearance. When full daylight had returned, we found
a mantis religiosa mounted on the objective of the duplex
photometer. We have no record of his observations,
for we did not supply him with pencil and paper ; but
I have no doubt that his opinion of the' eclipse, if it had
been recorded, would have been original, if not valuable.
Thirty minutes later the whole western sky was
perfectly unclouded. This greatly aggravated my dis
appointment, for I had not learned at that time, as
Professor Todd had, to accept the inevitable.

THE TOTAL ECLIPSE. 71
And so the long-expected phenomenon passed, and
the total phase for which such elaborate preparations
had been made for observing and photographing was
entirely hidden by clouds ; but many photographs of
the partial phases were taken both before and after
totality.

*

sM

.*.-*;

FORT SAN PEDRO, AT LOANDA, WEST AFRICA.
On the occasion of a total solar eclipse the astronomer
realizes, more fully perhaps than at any other time,
how insignificant a factor is man in the great processes
and phenomena of Nature, — how entirely powerless to
ehange even for a moment her lightest dictate. An
expedition is fitted out under the authority of a great
nation, supplied with instruments of precision, which
are the outgrowth of the accumulated intelligence, skill,
and scientific knowledge of all ages and every people ;
the time and path of the phenomenon are calculated

72 AN ECLIPSE PARTY LN AFRICA.
within a fraction of a second of time and a fraction
of a mile of space ; the instruments are mounted, and
all is ready. At the critical moment a wreath of silvery
vapor, beautiful as the robe of Aurora, floats gracefully
along, hiding the face of the sun and rendering nuga
tory the elaborate preparations. All in vain have been
months of weary thought and discussion of the form
and construction of various special instruments; vain
the laborious v!arrang6rnent of countless details; useless
the long, fatiguing, and, it'" may be, dangerous journey.
A bit of vapor, light as a lady's gossamer veil, white
and cool as a fleck of sea-foam, has drifted airily across
the disk of the sun, and all the knowledge we have of
Nature's laws — all we have learned of steam, electrij
city, magnetism, barometric pressure, and atmospheric!
currents — will not help in the least to sweep away
that unfriendly cloud, so slight in substance and co-1
herence that could the hand be thrust into its very
centre the sense of touch would not make one aware
of its existence. Only the sense of sight, alas ! tells '
the astronomer that he has met his enemy and been
defeated. Friday, 21th December, 13rd day out. — The day after the
eclipse, we began to dismantle the station. All the camp-
houses were down by the 24th, and the instruments put aboard,
except the heavy polar-axis. Christmas was a holiday, and
nothing was done. The day following, everything was shipped ;
a flat stone was cemented on the top of the south pier of the
polar-axis, and these letters and figures cut on it : —
IT. S. E. E.
1889.

Of

;^kb^*L^Mk£& *"C

SAINT PAUL DE LOANDA.

74 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Then I walked up the beach toward the northeast, as far as
the point of rocks which juts out into the sea, collected a few
shells and minerals, and, returning, went off to the ship. Soon
after two the engine was started, and the Pensacola headed for
Saint Paul de Loanda, to take on board the observers and in
struments left at that place three weeks earlier. Thence we
go direct to Cape Town.

STREET IN SAINT PAUL DE LOANDA, WEST AFRICA.
Saturday, 28th December, 14th day out. — We reached Loanda
early this morning, where three hundred tons of coal will be
put on board.
Loanda has a curious mixture of modern appliances
of life and customs adopted from the original savage

Atgfft

^-iaake

•sttesvjiii

WHARVES AND DISTANT BLUFFS, SAINT PAUL DE LOANDA.

76

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

inhabitants. The European buildings are old-fashioned
in architecture, belonging rather to mediaeval than
modern times, — none the less beautiful for that, but
giving a decidedly old-time effect. The shops are
small, dark, and dirty ; and it is seldom that any sign
over the door indicates the nature of the wares for
sale' within. On a hillside overlooking the town is

I 1 1 sj

sum

NATIONAL BANK AT SAINT PAUL DE LOANDA, WEST AFRICA.

the native quarter. Here the homes are of wattle, —
small flexible poles, interwoven like basket-work, form
ing the framework of the house, and plastered inside and
out with mud made of a reddish clay. Many of these
houses have been built so long that the clay has washed
off from the outside, showing the frame of wattle-work
and the clinch of the inside coat of mud. The roof is
of grass, which time, rain, and sun have changed to
a dusky neutral gray, blending so perfectly with the

3H»i£&' :'  »-, '^ i :r.-^^BHr. ,--*sS£»
VIEW IN THE NATIVE QUARTER, SAINT PAUL DE LOANDA,

78 AN ECLIPSE PART? IN AFRICA.
background as to make this part of the town invisible
from the distance of a mile. Superficially, Loanda, is
very clean, though there are no sewers. A good deal
of the surface debris is washed into the harbor by the
rains. The remainder is gathered into little baskets by
native women, and put into carts, which deposit their
loads on the beach, where the collected mass is burned,
— an excellent method for its disposal. Though the
surface of the town is clean, the ground is saturated
with the filth of three hundred years of occupation, and
the atmosphere is filled with a faint, sickly-sweet odor,
similar to that of sewer gas. It is strange that fever
and other diseases are not endemic in consequence.
But it is claimed by the inhabitants that the place is
far healthier than any other on the coast. Being
a stranger, I, of course, had no right to doubt this
statement ; but I was reminded of the assertion of
an inhabitant of a town on the Mississippi River, who
claimed that his place was perfectly healthy, though
the inhabitants of another town three miles below were
' disseminated by the fever.' I was glad to know that
this authentic information had been ' decimated ' to
the public.
Wednesday, 8th January, 85th day out. — Coaling the steamer
was finished late Saturday night ; but we waited over Sunday
for a member of the Expedition who had gone up the country
to the little town of Bom Jesus. Early Monday morning, 6th
January, the anchor was lifted, and we started on our loog
journey to the Cape of Good Hope. The course of the vessel
was laid south by west, along, and about a mile from, the coast.
The shore is just picturesque enough to escape being monoto-

ALONG THE WEST COAST. 79
nous. Flat table-land near the water ; farther back ranges of
hills not sufficiently high to reach the dignity of mountains.
Occasionally we came abreast of a valley, up which we could
look quite a long distance, catching glimpses of a pleasant
landscape ; but while wishing we could explore these tempting
nooks, the steamer had passed by, and the view was shut out.
On an actual visit these valleys might not have proved inter
esting ; but seen for a moment from the deck, the inland view
was very charming.
About nine in the morning we passed a Portuguese estab
lishment on Cape Martha. In the slave-trade times such
settlements were called ' factories ; ' indeed, the old name
clings to many of them still. Here were stored goods of all
kinds which the natives of Africa value, — beads, brass wire,
calico, flint-lock muskets, powder and shot, and, especially, rum
in abundance. These goods were bartered for the wretched
negroes, captured hundreds of miles inland, and driven, foot
sore, hungry, and wounded to the factory, whence they were
shipped to . different parts of the Christian world, to labor in
the sugar-cane fields ; the product, distilled into rum, was
then transported to Africa, and used to decoy more negroes
into the net of slavery and Portuguese Christianity. All of
this barbarity has been suppressed on the West Coast, and has
been very much diminished on the Eastern. Truly the moral
world progresses.
The water this evening exhibited most remarkable phos
phorescence. The light from the water was almost strong
enough to read by. The animals from which the light ema
nated were large, quite unlike the ordinary phosphorescent
polyp, which is very small. These were fully five inches long,
and about one inch broad, — not cylindrical, but flat. I saw
two driven forcibly together by an eddy from the propeller.
At the moment of impact then longest diameters were nearly
perpendicular to each other, and their momentum was so great
that they bent around like two capital IPs hooked together.

80 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
They separated instantly, straightened out to their full length,
and floated away, — two distinct individuals, showing their
exact shape, not two formless patches of hght, such as the
ordinary phosphorescent polyp shows. The habitat of this kind
seems to be quite far below the surface ; they were disturbed
by the screw of the Pensacola, but the life-line trailing on the
surface did not reach them, as it did the common species.
Sunday, 12th January, 89th day out. — To-day, abreast of
Walfisch Bay, we passed south of the sun. The temperature
for several days has been cool and delightful, like the last of
September in New England, ranging from sixty-two to sixty-
seven degrees in the morning.
Thursday, 16th January, 93rd day out. — We have had a
brisk head-wind to-day, and the Pensacola rolls a great deal.
I went on deck at half-past eight. The night was perfectly
clear and without a moon. The stars were very bright, shining
with an eager lustre never seen in the northern hemisphere
except in a frosty winter night. Low in the northeast Capella
was rising over the barren shore of Africa, now hidden by
darkness. On the meridian shone magnificent Orion, his
mighty club eternally threatening the Bull, forever retreating
westward before him. Still farther west the social Pleiades,
' a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid,' sparkled with
unwonted brightness. Imperial Sirius in the east challenged
the kingly Canopus his sovereignty of the southern heavens ;
while just rising over the restless sea flashed up the symbolic
glory of the southern cross. A little south and west of the
zenith the lambent light of the twin Magellan clouds bright
ened the dark blue of the sky with a phosphorescent lustre.
A large meteor, more resplendent than the planet Venus at its
brightest, shot down from the region of Taurus, — a radiant
line of vivid green, — and disappeared beyond the horizon.
But bright as were the heavens above with the changeless
constellations of the stars, they were rivalled and outshone by
the sub-aqueous constellation of the sea. As the purple dark-

ALONG THE WEST COAST. 81
ness of the night rose from the east and dropped a dusky veil
over the sunset glow, it seemed as if another dawn, born of
some unseen luminary, were rising from the waves to make the
night rival the day in beauty. From every white cap racing
down toward the horizon flashed up a phosphorescent glow, dis
pelling by its tender light the darkness lying on the surface of
the ocean, and revealing the pale emerald green of the water.
I have never seen, nor do I ever expect again to see, a night
so brilliant with the glory of sea and sky. The wake of the
Pensacola was a river of silvery flame that seemed to rise as it
receded, as if flowing upward to add its brightness to that of
the Milky Way, the twin river of fire in the heavens.

CHAPTER IV.
CAPE TOWN. — DR DAVID GILL AND THE ROYAL
OBSERVATORY.
ATUBDAY, 18th January, 95th day out. — •
Anchored in Table Bay, Cape Town, at ten
minutes before seven last evening. This
afternoon the Pensacola was warped from
her anchorage outside the breakwater, and
brought in so close to the wall of the dock
that a gang-plank connects the vessel with the shore, thus
obviating the inconvenience of waiting for boat-time when
we wish to land.
The Cape of Good Hope was discovered by the
Portuguese navigator, Bartholomew Diaz, in 1486 ; ten
years later Portugal sent out a fleet under command of
Vasco da Gama, who doubled the Cape on 20th March,
1497, touching at Mozambique and reaching India the
following May. Portugal's great poet, Camoens, made
use of the incidents of Da Gama's voyage in his national
epic, the Lusiad. The first permanent settlement was
made in 1652, when the Dutch East India Company
took possession of Table Bay, building a fort and oc
cupying the land- at the foot of Table Mountain. For
a few years there was peace between the new-comers
and the natives ; but before long it became evident to
the latter that the Europeans intended to take per
manent possession of the country, and they tried to

OCEAN VIEW, SOUTHEAST OF LION'S HEAD, NEAR CAPE TOWN.

84

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

discourage the settlers by driving off their cattle and
otherwise annoying them. These acts led to the
first colonial war, in 1659.
After peace was renewed, 6th April, 1660, an attempt
was made to purchase territory from the natives in
order to satisfy them, and remove all reason for hos
tilities. This attempt was successful, and enough land
for a small kingdom was purchased for less than fifty

NEAR CAPE TOWN.

dollars' worth of brandy, tobacco, beads, and other
merchandise. Transactions of a similar character are
recorded in our own early colonial history.
Through varying phases of prosperity and ill fortune,
dissensions among the colonists themselves and wars
with the natives, an attempt in 1781 by the English,
who at that time were at war with Holland, to capture
the colony, which was frustrated by a French fleet ; the
uneasiness of the colonists under the rule of the Dutch

o
H
W PL,<

Wy

-i
wQQ

86 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
East India Company; the spread through the colony
of ideas of ' Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,' learned
through French refugees, — the settlement was an
uncomfortable place of residence and a very uncertain
possession. In 1795 England sent out a fleet and
troops, and took forcible possession of the Cape. At
the peace of Amiens it was again restored to Holland ;
but in 1806 it was recaptured by England, and, in the
convention which followed the Peace of 1815, it was
finally cedecl to England by the King of the Nether
lands upon the payment of about three million pounds
sterling. Cape Town is by far the most populous city in South
Africa. The appearance of the place from the sea is
not impressive. The town and the valley in which it
is situated are overshadowed and half hidden by the
enormous mass of Table Mountain, rising in the back
ground to a height of nearly four thousand feet; and
on either side the Devil's Peak and Lion's Head contract
and dwarf the site of the town by their majestic and
dominating presence. In the U-shaped valley between
these mountains the city of Cape Town is situated, ex
tending with its suburbs, around the foot of the moun
tains for fifteen miles, from Constantia to Sea Point.
At the upper end of Adderley Street are the Govern
ment Gardens, containing about fifteen acres, beautifully
laid out, and planted with more than eight thousand
varieties of trees and shrubs.
The library contains more than forty thousand vol
umes, besides the exceedingly valuable collection, pre
sented by Sir George Gray, of rare manuscripts and

 ¦

! It! 1*1! p."
L-;]Siil

ilflllfflf
Zii>-* l tar* S^ S^

:i -,M':-;^-i;^ - *i4i*&;! .;.;i|

e^

Sfefigii

r'w

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CAPE TOWN (Table Mountain in Background).

88 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
original editions of early printed works, and many
volumes illustrating the native languages of Africa?
Australia, and New Zealand. The librarian, Mr Francis
Samuel Lewis, was for some years assistant at the Bod
leian, and had been recently appointed chief librarian at
Cape Town. He very courteously showed some of the
oldest and most interesting manuscripts and rare old
books ; among others one of the earliest editions of
Dante, — more nearly correct, he told me, than any in
existence. Mr Lewis hopes to have this photographed,
and an edition printed from the photographic copy.
Among other treasures the library contains a manu
script transcription of Boccaccio ; Caxton's Polychroni-
con, dated 1482 ; and editions of Shakespeare of 1623
and 1632.
Cape Town has the bad eminence of being the
dustiest city in the world. The streets are macadam
ized ; and the broken stone, ground to powder by con
tinual heavy teaming, is raised by the trade-wind in
clouds of yellow dust, which sift into every available
crevice, exacerbating the temper, and making cleanli
ness impossible, "The steady pressure of the south
east trade-wind pushes trees, shrubs, vines, and grass
toward the northwest ; so that the landscape, as a
clothier would say, has a nap. Everything but the
buildings leans to the northwest. The effect is very
singular ; and a person not accustomed to it needs occa
sionally to glance at the perpendicular wall of some
building to readjust his proper relation to the true
zenith and nadir.
When the Dutch held the Cape, they imported from

THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CAPE TOWN.
Unveiling of the Victoria Statue, 21st January, 1890.

90 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
their East India colonies slaves of the Malayan race.
The descendants of these slaves are numerous now in
the city, and they give a marked character to the street
crowds. Like all Eastern peoples, these Malays are
passionately fond of displaying in ' their dress the
brightest possible colors ; and some of the costumes
are almost as intense in hue as the most glowing parts
of the solar spectrum. The dresses of the women are
starched far beyond the condition of flexibility, and
stand out from the person like an enormous bell ; the
girdle is drawn around as close under the arms as the
laws of Nature will permit; and the wearer's head,
ornamented usually with a handkerchief of intense
color, but sometimes with ostrich feathers standing up
right, projects above the vast spread of dress like the
handle of an extinguisher. This fashion for Malay
servants' holiday dress has not been changed, I was
told, for centuries. A Malay festival occurred during
our stay at Cape Town ; and the streets, filled by
crowds of these gayly dressed servants, looked like a
great bed of moving tulips, stem uppermost.
A statue of H. M. Queen Victoria, standing near the
Parliament Houses, was unveiled during our visit, and
the ceremony was quite impressive, partly, perhaps, be
cause it was brief-. The line was pulled, the veil fell,
and the spectators gave three hearty British cheers.
Every subject of Victoria, in whatever part of the world
he may be, always shows in some way his loyalty when
ever her name is mentioned. The Malay servants,
collected like a fringe outside of the crowd, gave the
brilliant color needed to make the scene picturesque.

****,

.**"

r€

-M

fei 23 IES

'^— , '.t<;

Wfcfc; .

STATUE OF H. M. QUEEN VICTORIA, AT CAPE TOWN.
Unveiled Tuesday, 21st January, 1890.

92 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
As showing how prompt the English nation is to
plant not only its flag but also its civilization and its
science wherever it acquires a right to a new country,
it is interesting to notice that only five years after Cape
Colony was ceded to England, Parliament appointed a
Commission ' for more effectually discovering the longi
tude at sea.' This Commission held a meeting at the
Admiralty on 3d February, 1820, to consider the pro
priety of establishing an observatory at the Cape of
Good Hope., At an adjourned meeting three weeks
later, estimates were submitted of the cost of the neces
sary instruments, and by an Order in Council, under
date of 20th October of the same year, the Observa
tory was officially established; and the Rev. Fearon
Fallows was appointed to the office of Astronomer at
the Cape of Good Hope, 26th October, 1820.
Upon arriving at the Cape Mr Fallows at once
began to search for a proper site. He first selected
Tiger Hill, in the range of hills north of the lower land
which abuts to the west on Table Bay. He soon became
convinced, however, that Tiger Hill was not a suitable
location, on account of sand-drift and the prevalence of
clouds, and he finally selected a spot between Liesbeck
and Salt rivers, the site of the., present Observatory.
Mr Fallows appears to have had many difficulties
and inconveniences to contend with. He considered the
Cape houses not well built, and he had some reason
for his opinion ; for returning home one day with his
family, after a few hours' absence, he found the greater
part of his roof fallen in.
The Royal Observatory is by far the best equipped

SMALL DOME, ROYAL OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN.

94 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
observatory south of the equator, and an immense
amount of excellent work has heen done at this estab
lishment. A four-inch heliometer, the private property of Dr
Gill, now Royal Astronomer at the Cape, has been
devoted to investigating the parallax of some of the
more important southern stars. These investigations
were the first successful attempt, by extra-meridian ob
servations, to determine stellar parallax in the south
ern hemisphere. In this work Dr Gill was assisted
by Dr W. L. Elkin, now in charge of the heliometer
at Yale University. This instrument was replaced
in 1887 by a new seven-inch heliometer, with which
thousands of observations have been made for stel
lar and solar parallax, and measures of the sun's
diameter. The Observatory is supplied with many other instru
ments which have been in constant use, — among them
an altazimuth, made for the great Trigonometrical Sur
vey of India, which, proving too heavy for transporta
tion to the tops of the mountains in that country, was
lent to the Observatory in 1882 for the purpose of
making special investigations on fundamental declina
tions and astronomical refractions, for which the instru
ment is particularly well adapted; and a zenith telescope,
the property of the Geodetic Survey of the Colony, is
used in connection with the determination of a new
fundamental system of declinations.
With a coronagraph a long series of experiments
has been made, under the auspices of the Royal
Society, to obtain photographs of the sun's corona

VIEW OF CAPE TOWN, FROM LION'S RUMP ROAD.

96

AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.

without an eclipse, by Dr Huggins'.s method, so far
unsuccessfully. The Cape Catalogue for 1885 contains the places
-of 1713 stars, depending on the results of the Cape
meridian observations from June, 1879, to January,
1885; and a catalogue of southern circumpolar stars
contains the places of 104 stars.

^jAt^^^,.

THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN.

The work of determining the longitude of the Cape
of Good Hope was begun in 1881, and finished the next
year. It. involved the connection of the longitude of
Aden with Durban in Natal, by signals through sub
marine cables, and of Durban with the Cape over land
lines. The longitudes of many places in South Africa
have been determined in connection with the Transit

AT THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN.

98 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
of Venus Expeditions (British and American), and
also in connection with the Geodetic Survey of South
Africa. In 1882 Dr Gill obtained a series of fine photo
graphs of the great comet of that year. These plates
contained, besides pictures of the comet, impressions of
such a large number of. well-defined stars that the
Director proposed to the Royal Astronomical Society
of London and to the Paris. Academy of Sciences the
photographic method of star-charting in general. The
work was begun in April, 1885, and completed in June,
1889. More than twenty-five hundred plates have. been
made, and each area of the sky has been photographed
in duplicate. This work was done long before it was
decided by the Paris Congress to photograph the whole
heavens down to and including stars of the fourteenth
magnitude ; indeed, the astrographic research now in
progress as a result of this congress was a direct out
come of Dr Gill's initiative.
Table Mountain is an ever-present, almost an over
powering fact. Flat-topped and massive, perpendicu
lar for a third of its height from the top, it looks
down upon the little city at its feet, a majestic pres
ence. The moist trade-wind from the southeast slides
up the southern slope, and the moisture, becoming con
densed, pours down the steep northern side, until it has
descended about half the distance from the top to the
level of the sea, at which point the warmer air of the
lower level re-vaporizes the mist, and it disappears.
The cloud is snow-white, and hangs down over the
perpendicular, leeward side of the mountain, exactly

/% --0^f^Pz

INSTRUMENT HOUSES, ROYAL OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN.

'. -'¦& \\

100 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
resembling an enormous ' table-cloth,' which is the
picturesquely descriptive common name. At times it
seems as if the mist must descend and envelop the
town in its dripping folds, but always near the same
level the invincible sun-rays smite the threatening
cohorts and they vanish.

CAPE TOWN FROM THE DOCKS.

CHAPTER V.

THE VELDT. — THE GREAT KARROO.

¦A MIRAGE.

ONDAV, 21th January, 104th day out. — While
at Cape Town I was provided, through the
thoughtful generosity of the officers of the
Government Cape Colony Bailway, with a pass
to and from Kimberley, the Diamond City, six
hundred and forty-eight miles northeast of
Cape Town. I left the railway station, on Sunday evening,
26th January, about eight, and of course lost the beautiful
mountain scenery which we passed through in the night ; but
by four o'clock this morning I was awake and watching the
early daylight effects on the picturesque and rugged Hex
Eiver range of mountains. The road passes over dizzy via
ducts, through dismal tunnels, around sharp curves, and up
very steep grades ; and in passing over the divide, three
engines are required to move the train.
After crossing the Hex Biver mountains, the road enters a
rocky, barren country called the Veldt. Upon this tract the
principal vegetation consists of acacia bushes, cactus of many
kinds, gray lichens, dry and brittle, and here and there patches
of a fine silky grass, with flexible, polished stems glistening
in the sun like burnished silver as the wind sways them from
side to side ; and a little shrub called the Karroo-bush. This
last is a very important part of the Veldt vegetation. It is a
small shrub, somewhat resembling the European heather, and
very similar in appearance to the low huckleberry bush of
New England. It is the Mark Tapley of South .African
shrubs, being jolly under circumstances which would have

THE GREAT KARROO. 103
discouraged even that cheerful philosopher himself. Month
after month of dry weather will not kill it. If the drought
is long continued, the leaves slowly dry ; but even when ap
parently dead, it still affords nutritious forage to the countless
flocks ranging over the country. This shrub imparts to South
African mutton that peculiar flavor which has given it a
world-wide reputation. After the first rain, the shrub clothes
itself in green leaves with astonishing quickness. Enormous
flocks of sheep and goats, and herds of cattle and horses are
raised on the Veldt. From a distance these great aggrega
tions of white, black, gray, and parti-colored animals, as they
graze along, changing place with a slow but constant move
ment, present the appearance of acres of boulders, the debris
of an unfinished world arranging itself into lines and strata
in obedience to a fiat of the Creator.
North of the Veldt, extending over eight degrees of
longitude and more than five of latitude, is an immense
region known as the Great Karroo. This may be
broadly divided into two, the Central and the Upper
Karroo. The approximate height above sea-level of
the Central is 3,000 feet, the water-shed sloping south
ward. The Upper Karroo has an average altitude of
4,000 feet, and the point of greatest elevation in Cape
Colony is found in this division, 7,800 feet, at Compass-
berg. The climate of the Karroo is characterized by
great dryness, long and severe droughts occurring not
infrequently. Thunderstorms of great violence happen
at rare intervals, transforming large tracts of country
into temporary lakes. The summer is intensely hot ;
but, the air being excessively dry, the great heat is far
less oppressive than a much lower temperature where
the atmosphere is moister.

104 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
It was midsummer when I crossed this barren tract,
a season when the only relief from the drought must
come from occasional thunder-showers. At first sight
the soil seemed absolutely barren of vegetation, but a
closer inspection showed plants of several kinds, dot
ting the surface with faint signs of vegetable life.
Here and there are acacia bushes from four to eight
feet high, with scattered shrubs of a foot or two in
height, destitute of leaves during the dry season. Such
annual plants as survive the blasting sunshine of sum
mer are of a gray-green or bluish-green hue, and gener
ally have tough, leathery leaves.
The Karroo has much of the ocean's majesty and
impressiveness. Although the mountain boundary of
these immense plains is always within sight, and some
times the road approaches quite near to it, yet gener
ally it is so faint and cloud-like in distance that the
effect on the mind is that of far summer cumuli float
ing along the horizon. The eye ranges in delighted
freedom over mile after mile of level country, farther
and farther into the sweet mystery of distance, until
the airy blue of shimmering plain meets and merges
into the airy blue of cloud-like mountains.
Occasionally in the middle landscape a group of
trees, surrounding the farmstead of some industrious
Boer, sedulously fed and irrigated by rain-water im
pounded in small ponds, breaks the level monotony ;
or a dry water-course, deeply scored by the torrents of
the fierce rainfall during occasional thunder-showers,
can be traced in its tortuous course by the low bushes
and angular cacti sparsely fringing the banks, and
seeming to live on the memory of evaporated water.

THE GREAT KARROO. 105
The wind lifts clouds of red and yellow dust from
the desiccated surface of these almost limitless plains,
and, twisting them into spiral columns, sweeps them
along in majestic procession, the broad bases hiding the
ground in slow gyrations, while capitals and volutes
mingle with the misty clouds of the sultry noon ; call
ing to' mind the gigantic ghosts ' each on his separate
cloud ' described by Ossian, the warrior poet.
The population of the Karroo is very sparse, consist
ing largely of Dutch Boers, a hardy, industrious people,
who seem to thrive and grow rich in this semi-desert.
I could but contrast in my thought this parched desert
like region with their native Holland, so well described
by Butler : —
' A country that draws fifty foot of water,
In which men live as in the hold of Nature ;
And when the sea does in upon them break
And drown a province, does hut spring a leak.'
On these dusty, sun-baked levels, where the cry of
every living thing — man, animal, and plant — is for
water and evermore water, the very counterfeit pre
sentment of the life-giving liquid is refreshing and
restful to the eye, weary of dry river-beds, plains
cracked and shrinking in the solar furnace, and whirl
winds of dust, staining the blue of the sky with their
own impurity.
I had looked out for hours over the monotonous
level, dazzled by the powerful sunshine, hoping to see
the cool, blue glint of water, — either some stream not
yet wholly evaporated, or a pond still holding a little
of the collected moisture of the last thunder-shower ;

106 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
but we sped on, mile after mile, and no stream or pond
broke the desolate grandeur of the lonely Karroo. I
turned away from the car window, almost fevered with
disappointment, when, looking out once more, to my
great delight and still greater wonder I saw an enor
mous lake, or indeed it was an inland sea, stretching
from the middle distance to the foot of the far-off range
of misty mountains. Flaws of wind dimpled and dark
ened the surface, and tossed up tiny ripples of dark-
blue water; and the mountain boundary, doubled by
reflection, stood base to base, the real and the mimic.
The air blowing from that immense surface of water
seemed cool and moist, and I waited impatiently for
the road to approach so near that I might hear the
refreshing dash of the breakers on the beach. But
even while I was watching with delight the rhythmic
dance of the little waves, a dust-laden gust of wind
swept across this seeming lake, the cool blue surface
lifted and crumpled into a thousand folds, broke like a
shivered mirror, and in less than thirty seconds van
ished utterly, leaving only dry earth, parched water
courses, and thirsty acacia bushes, where a moment
before had seemed to be a sea on which apparently
might have floated safely the navies of the world.
I understood then, if never before, how travellers
suffering from thirst in the desert are lured away from
the right path by these seeming lakes and rivers, which
mimic the real so perfectly that nothing but long ex
perience in, or an actual knowledge of, the desert can
enable the wayfarer to resist the 'seductive beckoning
of these false but enchanting waters.

CHAPTER VI.
THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY.

TJESDAY, 28th January, 105th day out. —
Forty-one hours and forty-five minutes after
leaving Cape Town, the landscape in the
middle distance bristled with derricks, smoke
stacks, and huge piles of bluish-green earth ;
spires, towers, and roofs broke the monoto
nous level of the northern horizon ; and this was Kimberley,
the site of the richest diamond mines in the world ; the dis
covery of which transplanted English civilization nearly a
thousand miles into the interior of the continent, and built
up a fairly handsome city in one of the most desolate portions
of sub-tropical Africa.
The first houses, or shelters, erected on the site of
Kimberley, after the Kaffir hut-and-tent period, were
of corrugated iron. Small houses of this material still
remain, but many substantial and handsome buildings
of both stone and brick have already been built, and
others are in process of erection ; and before many years
the only uniqueness of Kimberley will be that of its
chief industry, the mining of diamonds. Admiration
for the energy which planted Kimberley is greatly in
creased when its geographical situation and climate are
considered. Its latitude corresponds closely with that
of Key West if north is changed for south; that is,
Kimberley is about as far south of the equator as Key

108 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
West is north. But the surroundings of Kimberley are
entirely different. South, the shortest line to the ocean
is more than six hundred miles. West, lies the torrid
Kahlari desert, from which every wind brings sicken
ing heat and unbearable dust. North, is towards the
equator, the furnace and boiler region of the globe ;
and east, five hundred miles separate Kimberley from
the ocean. But Nature placed diamonds there, and the
city was a foregone conclusion.
It was felt, at once, that the first necessity in the life
of the infant town was an adequate supply of water
not dependent upon sporadic rainfalls. Eighteen miles
distant flows the Vaal, a river of good size, never
becoming entirely dry. From this stream the Kimber
ley Waterworks Company pump water through eigh-
teen-inch wrought-iron pipes, direct to the storage
reservoir at Kimberley, four hundred and seventy feet
above the intake at the Vaal. The city is lighted by
electricity, and, walking at night in the brightly illumi
nated streets, it is difficult to remember that the lights,
pavements, handsome houses, and all of these latest
modern inventions and improvements are in the very
heart of Africa, where comparatively only a short time
ago, the very site of the city was dotted by Kaffir
kraals ; or scored by the broad tires of some adventur
ous hunter's wagon, treking into this wild region in
pursuit of African game. A few more Kimberleys
scattered over the interior, and Africa can no longer be
called ' The Dark Continent.'
The great point of interest in the place is, of course,
the diamond mines. These are four in number, all

IN THE STREETS OF KIMBERLEY, SOUTH AFRICA.

110 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
under one management : Kimberley, De Beers, Bult-
fontein, and Dutoitspan. A circle three and a half
miles in diameter would enclose the four. The Cape
geologists generally accept the theory that these mines
are extinct volcanoes, and that the pipe, now filled with
the friable, diamond-bearing rock, technically called the
' blue,' was the funnel through which in other geologi
cal times the smoke, steam, and mud were forced up.
The finding of the first South African diamond hap
pened in 1867, and the story is told by a trader named
John O'Reilly, who was treking southward from Orange
River and outspanned at the.De Kalk farm, owned at
that time by Mr. Van Niekerk. Mr. O'Reilly's account
is given in a letter written in 1872 to Sir Henry
Barkly, at that time Governor of Cape Colony. Mr.
O'Reilly writes : —
'In March, 1867, I was on my way to Colesberg
from the junction of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. I
outspanned at Mr. Niekerk's farm, where I saw a beau
tiful lot of Orange River stones on his table, and which
I examined. I told Niekerk they were very pretty.
He showed me another lot, out of which I at once
picked the " first diamond." I asked him for it, and
he said I could have it, as it belonged to a Bushman
boy of Daniel Jacobs. I took it at once to Hope Town,
and made Mr. Chalmers, Civil Commissioner, aware of
the discovery. I then took it on to Colesberg, and gave
it to the Acting Civil Commissioner there for trans
mission to Cape Town to the High Commissioner. The
Acting Civil Commissioner sent it to Dr. Atherstone,
of Graham's Town, who forwarded it to Cape Town.'

TOWN HALL AT KIMBERLEY, SOUTH AFRICA.

112 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Dr. Atherstone wrote back to the Colesberg Commis
sioner : ' I congratulate you on the stone you have sent
me. It is a veritable diamond, weighs twenty-one and
a quarter carats, and is worth five hundred pounds
sterling. It has spoiled all the jewellers' files in
Graham's Town, and where that came from there must
be lots more.'
Two years afterward, Mr. Van Niekerk obtained
from a Hottentot a large diamond for which he gave
livestock* to the value of two thousand .dollars. He
sold it soon after for fifty thousand dollars. It weighed
in the rough eighty-three and a half carats, and its esti
mated value was $125,000. Its weight was reduced
to forty-six and a half carats in cutting. This gem,
known as the ' Star of the South,' is owned by the
Countess of Dudley.
The first systematic search for diamonds was in the
gravel of the Orange River. The gravel of the Vaal
River also was found to be rich in diamonds ; and in
1870 diamonds were discovered about half-way between
the Vaal and Modder rivers, very near where the city
of Kimberley now stands; and early in 1871 another
mine was found about two miles from this, and in July
of the same year still another.
Open mining and dry sorting was the method first
employed at Kimberley. The earth was dug up, placed
in baskets, carried aside, sifted, examined, and the
diamonds picked out. This method was adhered to
until the mine became too deep for profitable working
by hand-baskets, when wire ropes were stretched from
the top of the surrounding rocks to the bottom of the

'"' ' £&¦¦ -'^SriV'rr .*£.- ;¦ ¦.- r »jr '. i'

¦-<£">'*&

tfigt0p.

><
a joia
35§I— I
i-HH<!
114 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
mine, and on these leathern baskets were swung and
hauled up, — at first by hand, afterwards by machinery
driven 'by horse-power. A great hollow was gradually
dug out, which would have had an area of twelve and
a half acres, had the rocks bounding the diamond
ground stood firm, but they did not; they began to
cave in and cover the claims below. The fallen rock,
technically called 'reef,' had to be removed to reach
the covered claims. When the open mine had reached
a depth of more than four hundred feet, and nearly
nine million dollars had been expended in removing
the fallen reef, it was seen that some other method of
mining must be adopted.
A horizontal section of the diamond-bearing blue
ground of the De Beers mine is of an irregular oblong
shape, having an area of about twelve acres of the
gem-bearing ground. The diamondiferous ground is
enclosed by a wall of rock nearly perpendicular. Be
ginning at the top of this enclosing wall, there is first
the soil, then a layer of red sand; then follows a
stratum, one hundred feet thick, of yellow basaltic
rock ; next below comes about one hundred feet of a
black shale, and underlying this is a dense amygdaloid
rock, called by the miners ' hard rock.' The inner
edge of the shale, where it is cut through by the
vertical pipe, is turned up sharply as if by friction of
the blue as it was forced upward, by pressure from
below. When it was found impracticable to continue open
mining, because of the continual falling of the reef,
several shafts were sunk, beginning two or three hun-

THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 115
dred feet outside of the reef margin, and inclining
inward at an angle of about thirty-six degrees, until the
blue ground was reached, from which point tunnels were
driven horizontally into the blue. Two sets of rails
were laid in one of the shafts, — one to accommodate
a cage for the descent and ascent of the miners, the

IN THE DIAMOND MINES, KIMBERLEY, SOUTH AFRICA.
other for hauling up the gem-bearing blue ground,
worked out in drifting the galleries which honeycomb
the whole twelve acres of the mine.
The De Beers mine, at the time of my visit, was
being worked a thousand feet below the surface ; and
the richness of the blue in diamonds seems to increase
as greater depths are reached. The workings of the

116 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
mine, hauled to the surface from the different levels by
steam-power (thirty seconds only are required to haul
up from the seven-hundred-foot level), are loaded into
iron box-trucks, each having a capacity of sixteen cubic
feet, and an average of three and one-half carats of
diamonds is found in every load. These trucks run
on a narrow-gauge railroad to the ' floor,' — a tract of
several hundred acres of level land, where the blue is
spread, until by the action of rain and the atmosphere
it disintegrates into a friable mass. To hasten this
process the blue is turned over from time to time by
ploughs, and is still further pulverized by thorough
harrowing. When sufficiently reduced (and for this
several months are required), it is taken to the wash
ing-mill ; the dirt, sand, clay, and lighter pebbles are
separated by various mechanical devices, until the
washed gravel which remains passes finally into the
pulsator. When the pulsator is full of the heavier
pebbles and gravel, the water is shut off, and the con
tents are dropped into an iron truck, which is then
locked and run into the sorting-room, the contents
poured upon a table, and the diamonds picked out.
The gravel is then taken to another room and carefully
examined a second time, and finally placed in a heap
outside of the building to be searched by Kaffir boys a
third time for any small diamonds which may have
escaped the first and second examinations.
A little more than a peck of gravel, direct from the
pulsator, was placed on the table, and from this I
picked out twelve diamonds. Two or three were fine
stones, and I was told that the value of the twelve

THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 117
was about two hundred and fifty or three hundred
dollars. The regular sorter, a white man, went over
the same gravel after me, and found several diamonds
I had overlooked, one a much larger stone than any
I had found.
In a heap on the ground outside of the sorting-room,
which had been looked over twice and was awaiting a
third examination by Kaffir boys, I noticed innumerable
little sparks of diamond, too small to be worth saving,
mere splinters of the precious stone ; but among them
were many as large as a pin's head, or a very little
larger. These were not splinters, but perfect crystals.
Stones of this size will all be picked out, and used
in the natural condition without cutting, as they are
too small for that treatment.
Every precaution is taken to prevent the workmen
from stealing the diamonds. Could the miners find
no market for stolen stones, there would be little or
no temptation ; but there is a class of men in Kimberley
and its vicinity who purchase stones from the miners
direct, asking no questions. These men are known as
I. D. B.'s, or, in full, Illicit Diamond Buyers. I was
told that before the passage of the laws regulating the
trade, as much as fifty per cent of the diamonds were
stolen. The laws now in force inflict very severe penalties
for stealing diamonds, buying them without a license,
or having one in possession without a certificate. The
penalty is imprisonment at hard labor from three to
fifteen years. Persons convicted of these crimes are
usually sentenced to labor on the breakwater at Cape

118 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Town, — a very magnificent work the Cape Colony
Government has undertaken, to increase the harbor
area and facilities, and render anchorage in Table Bay
more secure.
The mines are surrounded by a strong barbed-wire
fence, twelve feet high, and armed guards patrol night
and day outside of the enclosure, called the ' compound,'
and within are all necessary buildings for the comfort
of the miners. A large tank, five feet deep, in the
centre of the compound, is kept continually filled with
clean fresh water; and each shift of miners as they
come up make a rush for the bath before they think
of eating.
The precautions taken to prevent the miners from
stealing the precious stones are severe, unique, and
generally successful. No miner is engaged for a shorter
time than three months. After entering the compound
he is not allowed to leave it until his engagement has
expired. When his time is out and he is about to be
discharged, a pair of sole-leather mittens, with spring-
steel wrists, is locked on his hands. These mittens
have no separate place for the thumb ; it is impossible
for the man to grasp anything. Then medicines are
given him, which, in regard to their effect, might be
described algebraically as plus and minus, or a differ
ence in direction. After ten days of this treatment he
is paid and discharged ; and the chances are strongly
against his carrying away any diamonds which he may
have attempted to conceal by swallowing. It should
be said that every miner, before he is employed, is
fully informed of the peculiar ceremony which attends

THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 119
his discharge from the mine, but no objection is ever
made. There is a clean airy hospital in the compound ; and
I saw several convalescents who were reading, and
some were writing. Except a few white men, employed
as foremen of gangs, the miners are all native Africans
of various tribes, the best and most faithful laborers
being Basutos.
After exploring the seven-hundred-foot level of the
De Beers mine, I visited the office to see the diamonds
on hand. On two long tables were stones sorted with
regard to size and color, to the value, as the manager
told me, of £310,500 sterling, — a little more than
|1,500,000. Since the discovery of the first diamond, in 1867, up
to and including 1887, there have been taken from the
four mines somewhat more than thirty-three million
carats of diamonds ; or, translating the carat into a
more familiar standard, over six and a half tons of
diamonds have been found since 1867, with a value of
more than two hundred million dollars. I have no
statistics later than 1887.
Most of the diamonds are white, but a good many
are ' off-color ; ' that is, slightly milky, or tinged with
yellow or some other hue, detracting from the intense
prismatic fire given back by the perfectly white stone,
and therefore not so valuable.
A few black diamonds are found, generally imper
fectly crystallized, and are principally used, I believe,
for rock drills. Stones too full of flaws to be available
for shaping into gems, and splinters of sufficient size to

120 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
pay for collecting, are destined to be converted into the
diamond dust used by lapidaries in cutting and polish
ing precious stones. The typical diamond crystal is an
octahedron, or two four-sided pyramids placed base to
base, the faces slightly curved.
Sometimes the faces are so greatly curved as to mask
the normal form, giving the stone a nearly spherical
shape. I noticed one about the size of a boy's marble,
and very nearly as round. This specimen had no lustre,
looking quite like ground, or frosted glass ; and I was
told that diamonds having this dead surface make,
when cut, the most brilliant gems.
The collection of diamonds in the office of the com
pany was a sight to be remembered. A table, about
twelve feet long and two feet wide, extended along one
side of the office ; and another, half as long, was placed
at a right angle to the first. Both of these tables were
covered with little piles of diamonds, assorted with
reference to size and purity of color. The piles of
stones were arranged in rows from back to front of the
table. The first pile at the back was of the largest
stones; the next one in front of that of somewhat
smaller ones, — the diamonds in each pile being smaller
and smaller, until the pile at the front edge of the table
was composed of very small stones indeed, but each one
a perfect crystal.
All in this first row were pure white. In the next
row to the right the arrangement was the same, but the
diamonds were said to be not so pure in color, although
I could see no difference in that regard between the two
rows. But the third row showed a distinct difference

THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY.

121

in color ; and this difference grew more and more
marked in each succeeding row to the right, until in
the last one were collected fragments, splinters, and
stones full of flaws, and a few black diamonds. On the
shorter table, among the various piles, was a heap of
stones from the Bultfontein mine. The diamonds from
this mine crystallize with faces much less curved than
those from the other mines, — some of them, indeed,
having faces almost perfectly flat ; these were the most
beautiful of all the diamonds. They were almost
whiter than white ; and the natural faces were so very
brilliant that they appeared to have been artificially cut
and polished.
The largest diamond, found up to the time of my
visit, weighed four hundred and
twenty-eight and a half carats.
It is slightly yellow, but I be
lieve without flaw.
One day the sorter, in exam-.
ining the gravel from the pul
sator, discovered the half of a
large white diamond. It had
been split along the natural
cleavage line, but was otherwise
perfect. Months afterward the same man found the
other half of the diamond in gravel from another part
of the mine, two hundred feet below the gallery where
the first half was found. The two parts fitted together
perfectly. This is one of those curious happenings
which will sometimes occur in spite of the law of
probabilities.

THE LARGEST DIAMOND
FOUND AT KIMBERLEY.

122 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
An incident related by the manager of the mines
interested me, as showing that good luck at times is
hidden at our very feet. A large lump of ' blue ' had
been lying for several months beside the walk leading
from the manager's office to the mine. Noticing one
morning that this lump seemed ready to crumble from
long exposure to the weather, he kicked it lightly in
passing, and as it fell to pieces a white diamond as
large as a small chestnut came to view. I think he
was too much of a philosopher to spend the rest of
that morning in kicking lumps of blue. He knows
too much of the doctrine of chances.
My visit to Kimberley was made doubly pleasant by
the polite and untiring attention of the General Man
ager of the mines, Mr. Gardner F. Williams, who not
only courteously showed me every process of the mining,
from digging the blue in the 700-foot level, to the col
lected gems in the office, but presented me a beautiful
specimen also, as a souvenir; giving me, finally, the
freedom of the Kimberley Club and a sample there of
princely hospitality.
Although I had been exceedingly interested in the
unfamiliar life, the diamonds, and diamond mining of
Kimberley, yet I found my thoughts continually revert
ing to the lonely desolateness of the Karroo. Its char
acter was so stern and uncompromising, so devoid, of
softness and compliance, that in some recondite manner
it reminded me of those old Hebrew prophets who stood
in the presence of the haughtiest and most powerful
tyrants of the East, and dared to tell the truth, even
were it as incredible and unwelcome as that which rang

THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 123
in the ears and shook the courage of Belshazzar. But
as in the utterances of those prophets we find poetry
of the highest order, so I was to see the desolate un-
loveliness of that arid vastness glow and blush into
inexpressible beauty.
As the train drew out of the station on the return to
Cape Town, leaving behind diamonds and noise and the
fevered race for wealth, and stretched out over the
dusty levels, a feeling of peace and rest came over me,
gradually changing to a mood of expectation. I waited
if perchance some revelation of truth or beauty might
be given me before I left forever this sea-like expanse
of monotonous waste.
In crossing this plain, I found it necessary to adjust
my ideas to an entirely unfamiliar environment. The
great plateau, nearly level, did not remind me of our
western prairies, rich with their abundance of natural
and cultivated vegetation; it was more like a desert,
and yet quite unlike, because permanent habitations
were scattered here and there, and more or less of veg
etable life sparsely dotted the surface ; and deep, broad
water-courses, some not entirely dry at the time of my
visit, suggested destructive torrents in the season of
thunder-showers .
The mountains, flat-topped and massive, forming the
boundary on either hand of this immense tract, were
so different from the mountains I had seen or imagined,
that they seemed as unreal as the scenery of a hasheesh
vision. And the loneliness of this lonely region was
intensified and made more oppressive by the appearance,
at long intervals, of a mud-walled cottage, far away from

124 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
the road, in the middle landscape, where some solitary
farmer battled single-handed for advantage and for life
against Nature's gigantic forces. His cottage did not
bring to mind the sweet influences and affection of home;
it suggested rather the rude shelter of a wild beast's
lair. Arid when, in the shimmering light of early even
ing, I saw in silhouette against the darkening sky a lone
horseman riding toward a house just visible near the
horizon, I could not imagine children rushing out to
meet him as he neared his door, or a wife waiting with
smiling welcome for him to dismount and greet her ; it
seemed as if wife and children must be as stern and
undemonstrative as the stern and silent landscape
around them. And yet I knew this was not true ; for
love and affection ignore longitude and latitude, and
are independent of landscape and climate ; and really I
have no doubt that when the lone horseman reached
his home, he was met by the heartfelt greeting of a
happy wife and the rough, tumultuous welcome of joy-'
ous children. It was the overwhelming influence of
the stern Karroo on my own mind that made human
affection in its presence seem impossible. But lone and
desolate as it appeared, it had a wild beauty I shall
never forget.
On these almost illimitable plains the hunger of the
eye for measureless distance is fully satisfied. The
road sometimes approaches the mountains within a
few miles, and again the distance is so great that the
dark, basaltic rocks of the highest range barely lift
themselves above the horizon, a trembling line of pale,
nearly invisible gray. At sunset or early morning the

THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 125
peculiarities of the Karroo landscape are most strongly
brought out and emphasized. Then the slant rays of
sunshine reveal every little elevation and hollow which
slightly diversify the otherwise unvarying level. The
permanent state of the atmosphere over the Karroo is
similar to the temporary condition of the whole earth's
atmosphere following, and caused by, the tremendous
volcanic explosion of Krakatoa on 27th August, 1883.
These semi-desert plains support only a scant vegeta
tion. The rainfall being very small, the normal condi
tion of the surface soil is that of fine dust. This dust,
as already shown, is lifted by the wind in enormous
spiral columns to a vast height, and diffused through
the air in every direction ; and the level rays of morning
and evening are so reflected, refracted, and colored by
it that the sunsets of the Karroo are similar in many
of their features to those strangely beautiful sunsets
having their origin in the dust from the Java volcano.
The general impression produced by these barren
plains is that of strangeness, overwhelming distances,
and a solitude oppressive and unfriendly. It did not
seem as if those boundless wastes could ever know any
sweet gradations of light, color, and shade ; but rather,
only two changes seemed possible, the gloom of night
or the blazing sun of day. I did not yet realize the
infinite possibilities of mist, cloud, and dust.
My last view of the Karroo was on my return to
Cape Town from Kimberley, on the evening of 31st
January, the midsummer of the southern hemisphere,
when I saw this barren region transformed. The
clouds and dust in the atmosphere reflected down to

126 AN ECLIPSE. PARTY IN AFRICA.
earth at sunset a light so rich in color that the most
common things assumed the semblance of preciousness
and beauty.
The day had been very hot. Thunder-storms had
been passing around the horizon all day. I counted
eight separate and distinct showers at one time, though
none of them happened to reach the spot where I was.
As the sun neared the western horizon, it was gradually
obscured by an enormous, lurid-purple thunder-cloud.
In the dark gorges and misty ravines of that vaporous
floating mountain, incessant flashes of lightning scat
tered a quivering gleam of palest yellow. In the
bosom of this brooding cloud lurked the yet chained
forces of a destructive tornado, ready at any moment to
burst its bonds and descend earthward on its course of
terror and desolation. But another force was there, —
a milder, more beneficent, yet far stronger power, be
fore whose advance the black vapor with its incipient
tempest retreated, broken and disordered. On the
misty boundary between cloud and plain, a thin line of
sky, brilliant with sunshine, broke through the black
ness, separating the heavy cloud from the horizon, and
through this narrow opening topaz-shafted arrows of
sunlight smote the threatening cohorts of the storm,
and they vanished. Driven upward by the sun-god,
the torn shreds of flying vapor, no longer threatening,
no longer lurid, but transfigured by the chastening
of defeat, caught splendor from their conqueror, and
glowed with -rose and gold and crimson. By a strange
chance the clouds which twined and wreathed them
selves into forms grotesque, fantastic, and beautiful,

THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 127
took at one time the exact shape of a mighty harp
strung with fire and gold. Lying distinct and vivid
against the lucent sky, its form was so perfect, even to
small details, that I actually expected to hear throbs
of divinest music fall from those glowing chords and
thrill the sunset air with a wordless song of celestial
sweetness. But the fingers of the wind, toying care
lessly with the instrument, shivered string of gold and
frame of fire, and spun the dismembered fragments
into other forms of wondrous beauty, and changed and
shaped and re-shaped them again and yet again, until
the mind was bewildered in endeavoring to follow the
infinite succession of form and color.
The sun, by this time below the horizon, shot up into
the sky great shafts of light, illuminating every wreath
of mist, every mote and dust-speck in the air, until the
west was a fountain of flame which leaped in chords of
beautiful color to the very keystone of the heavenly
arch, and dashed itself into a glory of crimson spray
on the silvery shore-line of a cirrus cloud which spanned
the heavens from north to south through the zenith.
And not yet were the capabilities of light and cloud
and dust exhausted. As the intenser lights faded, the
upper clouds burned with iridescent colors, like the
fiery throat of a humming-bird, and with the softer
tints of mother-of-pearl. As the slow-footed wind
drifted these high clouds along, they reflected down
from the upper heavens a light which transformed
the barren Karroo into a seeming Paradise. The dry
water-courses were paved with rocks of polished gold.
The thorny acacia bushes lifted into the evening light

128 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
foliage of transparent chrysoprase, borne on branches
of shining brass. Every cactus and grass-blade and
tiniest shrub and flower seemed transfigured by some
magic into the most beautiful and precious material,
such as might fitly be used in the walls of the New
Jerusalem. The very ground itself, scorched by months
of drought, and rough with unlovely pebbles, was a
variegated pavement of topaz, beryl, and chalcedony;
and great boulders of brown basaltic rock were changed
to mighty gems of garnet and ruby.
Meantime the clouds in the west, partially losing the
sunlight, took deeper and richer tints, — the blazing gold
changed to burning crimson, and the rich scarlet into
violet and brown ; and amethyst and amber were inter
fused and overlaid by purple and pearly blue. Fleecy
warps of delicate gray were filled and interwoven by
the shuttle of the wind with a woof of crimson and
violet; and this celestial fabric, woven in the loom of
the atmosphere, hung its glowing folds across the west
ern heavens, as if to veil the effulgence of the Ark of
God, the glory of which it seemingly could only half
conceal. Then night and silence came down upon the vast
plain, and all its distinctive features of extent, stern
ness, and desolation were lost to sight. The already
risen moon, now nearing its full, silvered the desert
with peaceful light. Every cloud in the broad sky
from horizon to horizon had dissolved and vanished,
and the stars looked down upon the ever changing earth
with imperial calm from their unchanging thrones ;
and then the unconsciousness of sleep came to my brain,

THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 129
wearied and overstrained by attempting to grasp and
comprehend what was largely beyond human appre
ciation. But whenever I recall my journey across
this enormous plain, and remember its loneliness, the
grandeur of its mountain boundaries, and the majesty of
its extent, I recall also the almost incredible trans
figuration conferred upon it by that sunset, to me ' The
Only, ' — the last I saw, or ever shall see, drop its
treasures of matchless color over the African Karroo.

CHAPTER VII.
SAINT HELENA.

HUESDAY, 6th February, 114th day out — It
was very hard to leave Cape Town, for the
Expedition had been received with such un
bounded hospitality that it seemed more like
bidding good-bye to home and life-long friends
than sailing away from a strange city in far-off
southern Africa, and friends whom we had seen for the first
time only three weeks before. But English hospitality is famous
the world over, and I know by delightful personal experience
that it loses none of its gracious quality by being transplanted
to the southern hemisphere.
But time, tide, the exigencies of the Expedition, and the
Pensacola wait for no man ; so between six and seven o'clock
this morning the hawsers were cast loose from the dock and
the vessel hauled out into the stream, ready to sail as soon as
the mail should be made up for us to carry to Saint Helena.
This was sent on board at two o'clock, and soon after our
anchor was weighed, and we sailed away northwestward to
ward this mere dot of volcanic rock in the vast Atlantic.
Thursday, 20th February, 128th day out. — Two weeks of
ideal voyaging. Table Mountain and the picturesque Lion's
Head faded slowly into the purple mist, as the Pensacola
stretched away over the lonely hlue water of the southern
Atlantic. Then followed day after day of lovely trade-wind
weather. Small white cumulus clouds, infiltrated with sun
shine, floated along the sky, dropping shadows here and there
on the rippled surface of the sea. Sometimes an albatross,
with wings extended and motionless, would overtake and pass

SAINT HELENA. 131
us as easily as if the vessel were at anchor. Schools of por
poises sported around; and spouts of whales were seen at
times, — jets of white steam springing out of the blue water.
Mother Carey chickens were always playing near the stern ;
flying fish darted from the water by hundreds for a brief flight
in the sunshine ; and occasionally a frigate bird, with its
angular wings, forked tail, and scarlet pouch, passed over the
vessel so near that as he turned his head from side to side it
was easy to catch the fierce expression of his eye.

— UsS^^^

THE PENSACOLA 'DRESSED UP' AT SAINT HELENA.
No wonder that a tired brain finds recuperation in voyaging
through such halcyon waters, when little incidents like these
are the only excitement. The average man has sufficient phi
losophy not to dwell upon — and even actually to forget — his
shore troubles and perplexities, when he knows that a thou
sand miles of ocean separate him from the cares and worries of
life, and he accepts the fact, and the wearied brain has a
chance to recover its normal tone.

132 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
At eight o'clock this morning the Pensacola dropped anchor
at Saint Helena, in the roadstead of Jamestown, the only settle
ment on the island. The long rumble of the chain cable run^
ning out the hawse hole with the weight of our ponderous
anchor had scarcely ceased, when every hidden echo in the
little island was started into untropical activity by the salute
of twenty-one guns given by the Pensacola to the flag of Great
Britain. At times the sound came back, reflected directly to the ship
from a perpendicular precipice on the port side of the vessel,
giving exactly the sensation of some mighty bird flapping his
slow way along, so near that the wind of its flight struck the
cheek as it passed ;
' And the great echoes flapped around the hills.'
' The reports came back again and again, from cliff and pre
cipice and lava peak ; dying gradually away until the roar of
the guns was finally lost in the eternal roar of the sea.
Had the British Government searched the ocean
world over for the sole purpose of finding the most
lonely island on which to confine Napoleon Bonaparte,
I think Saint Helena would have been its choice. It
stands solitary in the South Atlantic Ocean, twelve
hundred miles from. Africa on the east and nearly two
thousand from South America on the west. The near
est land is the island of Ascension, seven hundred miles
northwestward; bearing however no special affinity
to Saint Helena except vicinage, and a similar igneous
origin, itself a mere volcanic cinder.
It has been claimed by some that Ascension and
Saint "Helena are .the only visible remains, the points
of greatest altitude, of a vast continent, separating,

SAINT HELENA.

134 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
geological ages ago, the Atlantic Ocean into two parts,
and by sudden or gradual subsidence disappearing be
neath the water, leaving these islands sole relics of a
vanished continent.
Whether this be true or not, there is no doubt of the
volcanic origin of Saint Helena, nor that its geology is
of great interest. On the southern side of the island
is an enormous crater, its northern edge still intact;
and were its circle complete it would be quite four
miles in diameter and three thousand feet deep. But
the southern side is gone ; perhaps it never existed, for
volcanic craters in trade-wind regions frequently have
their windward side missing, the steady drift of the
trades blowing to leeward all of the light material
thrown out by the volcano. Of the area which would
be enclosed were the great crater complete, more than
two-fifths are covered by the sea.
Outside the present shore line is a submarine pla
teau in what seamen term shoal water, varying in
depth from fifteen to sixty or seventy fathoms. This
plateau is frbm one to two and a half miles in width,
and beyond its outer, or seaward, edge the water sud
denly deepens to one hundred and twenty, and in
several places to two hundred and fifty fathoms. Off
West Point the soundings in a west-southwest direction
are twenty-one, thirty-two, forty-one, forty-seven, and
eighty-eight fathoms. Less than a cable's length from
the last the lead drops two hundred and fifty fathoms.
The soundings off Gill Point are similar, and at the
same distance from the shore the same great depth of
two hundred and fifty fathoms is reached. Ii the

ON BOARD THE U. S. S. PENSACOLA. Target Practice off Saint Helena— 'Take Aim:

136 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
space between Saint Helena and Ascension were ever
dry land, it has sunk, if not ' deeper than ever plummet
sounded,' at least deep enough to embarrass the theory
of a prehistoric continent.
The history of Saint Helena reads like an old-fash
ioned three-volume romance, where sadness and suffer
ing predominate, and hardly at the very last does it
'live happy ever after.'
When the Portuguese navigator Juan de Nova Cas-
tella discovered the island on 21st May, 1502, he saw
no inhabitants, nor any evidence of its ever having
been inhabited. It was clothed to the tops of the
highest peaks with vegetation, the interior being cov
ered with a dense forest of gumwood and ebony trees.
No wild animals were found except such as live in or
on the sea, — turtles, seals, sea-lions, and sea-birds.
The 21st of May being the anniversary of the birth of
Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, Cas-
tella named the island Saint Helena.
In 1513 the Portuguese left on the island — ' ma
rooned ' would be a more descriptive term — Fernandez
Lopez, a nobleman who had disgraced himself by deser
tion. He had been previously punished by merciless
mutilation, too often the custom in those days; but
with apparent generosity, resting, however, on a broad
substratum of selfishness, they left with him a few negro
slaves, some goats, pigs, partridges, guinea fowl, pea
cocks, vegetables of several kinds, lemon, orange, fig,
and peach trees. As they intended to make the island
a place of call for their homeward-bound India ships,
should these introduced animals and trees flourish, as

SAINT HELENA, 1890. (View in the Interior.)

138 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
the climate gave every assurance they would, the place
would soon be able to supply fresh food to their vessels,
which, on the long return voyage from India, would
be sorely needed by the time the island was reached;
it being known, even at that early day, that fruits and
vegetables are the most effectual antidote and cure for
the dreaded scurvy.
In 1588 Captain Cavendish, an Englishman, called
there, and found quite a settlement where Jamestown
now stands^ — a church and several buildings. The
plants and animals introduced by the Portuguese
seventy-five years before had evidently found a con
genial habitat ; for trees of orange, lemon, fig, pome
granate, and palm were flourishing kindly in their new
home, and the goats, pigs, and fowls had increased
enormously. By this time, however, the Portuguese,
more interested in acquiring a foothold in other parts
of the world, had deserted the island; the Dutch
took possession and held it until 1651, when, having
established a colony at the Cape of Good Hope, they
also abandoned the lonely island, and it was immedi
ately seized by the English East India Company, who at
once introduced settlers from England, as well as new
plants and animals. Under this judicious care the
place improved so much that the jealousy of its late
possessors, the Dutch, was aroused, and in 1665 they
attacked it and regained possession. It was, however,
re-taken by the English the next year, and they began
immediately to strengthen the old fortifications and
erect new ones.
In 1673 the Dutch again captured the island, meet-

SAINT HELENA.

139

ing this time much greater resistance from the English,
who were better prepared for an attack. The battle
took place at High Peak, and after a hot encounter the
English were defeated and the Dutch marched to Fort
James, standing on the site of the present castle.
After a long resistance the fort yielded, and the Gov-

SAINT HELENA, 1890. ROSEMARY HALL, ASSIGNED TO THE SOUTH
AFRICAN PRINCE DINIZULU, FOR A RESIDENCE.

ernor and most of the inhabitants made their escape to
Brazil by means of some ships which happened to be
in the harbor. At Brazil it was the good fortune of
the fugitives to find a British squadron, under com
mand of Captain Munden, proceeding eastward to act
as convoy to the homeward-bound fleet of Indiamen.

140 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Learning of this defeat of the English, he immediately
made sail for the island, with the purpose of recaptur
ing it. This he accomplished by landing two hundred
men on the east side, and, marching around by way
of Hutt's gate and Longwood, took up a position on
Rupert's Hill overlooking Jamestown on the east. At
the same time Captain Munden's squadron appeared
in front of Fort James. The movements of both the
land force and the fleet seem to have been a complete
surprise to sthe Dutch, and in their consternation they
surrendered at once. The island has remained in un
disputed possession of the English ever since.
Saint Helena has been visited by many eminent
physicists and astronomers at various times for scien
tific purposes. A partial list of the names of these
persons and the object of their visits was made by Pro
fessor Cleveland Abbe, our meteorologist, and printed as
Bulletin No. 13 of the expedition. This is my authority
for the following facts relating to the visits.
These men made on the little island many observa
tions of great scientific value. Edmund Halley, the
English astronomer and mathematician, established an
observatory near Hutt's Gate in 1676, where for two
years he made observations resulting in the first cata
logue of 341 southern stars. He also determined the
magnetic variation in 1676, and observed the transit
of Mercury in 1677. The ruins of his observatory are
still visible, though partially hidden by vines, bushes,
and wild pepper.
In the years 1697 to 1702, as Captain of H. M. S.
Paramour, Halley made a magnetic survey of the

SAINT HELENA. 141
Atlantic Ocean, and during the cruise he once more
visited Saint Helena in 1699.
In 1761 the Honorable East India Company erected
an observatory on a ridge near the point where Alarm
House now stands, for the use of Maskelyne and Wad-
dington, English astronomers, who reached Saint Helena
in April of that year for the purpose of observing the
transit of Venus occurring 5th June, 1761.
Many other celebrated men — astronomers, physicists,
and naturalists — have landed on the 'island from time
to time in their pursuit of scientific information, among
whom may be mentioned T. V. Wollaston and Charles
Darwin. Dr David Gill arrived in 1877 at Saint Helena, en
route for Ascension, to determine the solar parallax by
observations of Mars at opposition. He spent ten days
at Johnson's observatory on Ladder Hill, making that
the base of his determination of the longitude of
Ascension. If Bonaparte retained any susceptibility to ordinary
emotions, his heart must have sunk within him when
his eyes first rested on the seaward aspect of Saint
Helena. Stern precipices of dark lava, rising almost
perpendicularly from the sea, look down with a forbid
ding frown upon the ocean and the little cluster of
houses forming the village of Jamestown. The only
spot of green to be seen from the harbor is a row of
peepul-trees, — the sacred fig of the Hindus, — whose
glossy leaves throw cool dense shadows on the ground
beneath them.
Jamestown has one street only, — the gorge where

142 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
it is situated being too restricted for more, and the
street itself too narrow to afford room for shade-trees.
Passing through the town toward the interior of the
island, the character of the country changes, fully justi
fying the terse and graphic description given of Saint
Helena, — 'an emerald set in bronze.' The whole island
is composed of lava, wrinkled and contorted, lying at all
possible angles with the horizon ; deep narrow valleys
separate the hills, and, carrying usually a small stream
of water, are fresh and green with grass and other
vegetation. These lovely fertile valleys are the charm
and surprise which Saint Helena has for the stranger.
As the road reaches the top of a hill, far below will
appear a sheltered nook, green and fresh as the country
in a northern June, — cattle grazing on the steep hill
sides, a cottage half hidden from sight by climbing
vines, and masses of flowers whose vivid colors 'bid
the rash gazer shield his eye.'
The roads are worthy of the highest commendation.
They penetrate every part of the island, are well graded
and thoroughly macadamized. They are scarped out
of the steep slope of the hills, making many sharp
turns right and left until the highest ridge is reached.
A substantial wall of solid masonry on the lower or
down-hill side gives complete protection , against driving
or walking off. In some cases the road is hewn out of
the face of a hill so steep that to the unaccustomed eye
the precipice seems actually to overhang. The highway
zigzags along, ascending so gradually that the grade is
nowhere difficult, and the top is reached almost before
the traveller is aware.

55o
HCO

H55

144 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Walking up from the landing, under cliffs that
really slope forward and hang over the road, and
passing through a gateway of heavy stone-work, where
on ihe seaward side of the wall grow the peepul-trees
so conspicuous from the harbor, the ' Castle ' is seen on
the left, where the Governor has his offices; on the
right is a handsome church, and directly in front is the
one street of Jamestown. This divides at the upper end
of the town, the left branch leading to Longwood, the
right after »many turns reaching ' The Briars,' a lovely
spot of tropical beauty. Nearly every commanding
point is surmounted by a fortification. Most of these
are not now garrisoned ; but their great number is
suggestive of the precautions taken to prevent the
escape or rescue of Napoleon. West of the anchorage
is Ladder Hill, a very prominent elevation strongly
fortified and garrisoned. A road zigzags up the side of
this hill with such a grade that a pony-carriage can
readily be driven up; but for pedestrians there is a
more direct, though not an easier, way of surmounting
the height. A ladder, as it is called, — in reality a
flight of steps, six hundred and ninety-nine in num
ber, — leads up the face of the cliff at angles vary
ing from twenty-eight to thirty-five or forty degrees
from the horizontal. Beyond this fortification is the
road which leads to ' Plantation,' the residence of the
Governor. This road passes through all varieties of
scenery, toward all points of the compass, with grades
of continually varying angles ; in one place there is
even a stretch of nearly half a mile that is almost level,
— a rare fact in Saint Helena. Plantation House is a

ROADSIDE VIEW IN SAINT HELENA.

146 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
beautiful place, peculiar for the great variety of trees,
shrubs, plants, and flowers flourishing there.
While the island was owned and occupied by the
East India Company, the directors of that great corpo
ration searched the whole world for seeds, flowers, and
trees — every vegetable creation, in short, having useful
ness or beauty to recommend it — to adorn the little
volcanic island. Enormous specimens of the Australian
blue gum, or eucalyptus, have found here a congenial
home ; while coffee-trees, cocoa-nut, date, sago, and
cabbage palms, bananas, mango, orange, citron, fig,
grape, pomegranate, olive, ebony, Port Jackson willow,
Norfolk Island pine, frangipani, cashew, mahogany, and
tamarind stand in friendly companionship with the
more familiar oak, elm, pine, maple, apple, currant, and
gooseberry of the temperate zone. The cinchona was
planted here quite extensively, and for a time seemed
to flourish as thriftily as in its native South America ;
but the careful cultivation needed by this tree was
finally neglected, and now only a few plants are left,
half dying from being choked by more aggressive and
vigorous growers.
Saint Helena is very lovely and very picturesque ; but
the island is overshadowed even to this day by the
memory of the time when Napoleon Bonaparte walked
sadly around the grounds of Longwood, or gazed with
tired eyes on the glowing summits of the lava ridges
hemming him in. W. Clark Russell says : ' It is a
thing as old as the hills, this reference to Bonaparte
when you talk of Saint Helena, and at a distance it is
made tedious reading by iteration ; but once within the

SAINT HELENA, 1890. "THE BRIARS.' (Adjoining Napoleon's First Residence.)

148 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
sphere of the rock, the spell is upon you, you cannot
break from it.' Turn your eyes where you will, the
vision of a figure with folded arms, with face of marble,
with drooped head, and piercing eyes lifted into a level
gaze, confronts you.'
No more than others did I escape this spell of a long-
passed sorrow. As a boy I had read the history of
Napoleon; I had been fascinated by his 'glory.' I
could not at that age see upon what misery and destruc
tion this glory was founded ; how it was reared upon
the desolation and ruin, not only of the nations he sub
dued, but of France itself, which he professed to love so
truly. And when I read of his abdication, his banish
ment to Elba, his escape therefrom, the final ' hundred
days ' of glory, and, following the bloody and disastrous
day of Waterloo, the long weary voyage in the warship'
of his most persistent and successful enemy to the little
volcanic island in the southern Atlantic where he was
to live out the short remainder of his life and be buried
thousands of miles away from the people whom he led
to glory and ruin, — my boyish heart was saddened by
his story, in some phases the saddest and most pathetic
in the history of any ruler. And now, on this day of
February, 1890, — sixty-nine years after his death, —
I set my foot on the shore of his prison-island, free to
explore every nook and corner, and wander on the
paths trodden by the weary exile. As soon as I landed
on the historic spot, I seemed to step two generations
backward into a legendary past, — into a story I had
pored over in childhood days, feeling my young heart
throb in sympathetic sorrow for the failure and total

<
a -i

<SI¦si<<
m <: ^i
o

150 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
ruin of the great Chief who had been a hero and almost
a demigod to my imagination. I could not escape from
the spell. At Longwood I wandered from room to
room, picturing to myself the occupants in the deadly
monotony of daily life. Their reminiscences of Paris,
so far away but so well remembered ; the querulous com
plainings of the once powerful Chief, varied by stately
dictations of his memoirs, hampered, perhaps, but slightly
by actual facts ; petty complaints of the petty tyranny
of Sir Hudson Lowe ; long and secret discussions of the
possibilities and the means of escape ; and last, in the
stormy morning of the 5th May, 1821, when all hope of
escape had gone except that escape vouchsafed to all,
across that river broader than the broad Atlantic, whose
hither shore we know, but of the farther none has re
turned to tell us, — in the midst of a tropical tempest,
the stormy soul of the great leader uttered his last
words, 'Head of the Army,' and so passed into that
peace which he had never felt nor allowed others to
know. As I looked from the door of Longwood, over the
same sunlit hills where the sad eyes of the Exile had
so often lingered, a faint shadow appeared to darken
their loveliness, as though the little sea-bound rock,
still loyal to his memory, had not yet recovered its
natural cheerfulness. While wandering over the wind
swept hills and through the secluded valleys of the
lonely island, I could never quite divest myself of a
feeling of sadness, a sympathy half unconscious with
the great sorrow of the defeated warrior, whose last
years had been spent here in enforced quiet and

V; *;

^i-^^8?^,.^ 5

.__ . .
'NAPOLEON VAL,' SAINT HELENA.
152 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
harmlessness, and who had been at rest threescore
years and ten.
Lovely as I saw the island to be, I was grateful that
it was not my destiny to spend the remainder of my
life in the lonely crater of an extinct volcano, but that
in a few days the good ship Pensacola would lift its
anchor and plough its way to the current of active
modern life in my own native America.
'Twere long to tell of the many excursions and
picnics made by the hospitable Saint Helenese for the
entertainment of the Expedition and the officers of the
Pensacola. Perhaps the most interesting was one to
Sandy Bay, given on 5th March by His Excellency
Reginald L. Antrobus, of the Colonial Office, then
Acting Governor.
The highest point of the island is Diana's Peak,
reaching an elevation of nearly three thousand feet.
This peak is the northern side (the only part remaining
intact) of the immense crater whence was ejected the
material composing Saint Helena. The southern side
is irregularly broken down, finally reaching sea-level at
Sandy Bay. The view from the road, at the point
where it passes over the sharp edge of the crater, is
beautiful and impressive. The whole inner slope for
two thousand feet downward is covered by luxuriant
vegetation, and farms and cottages dot all of the north
ern side. West, ridge rises above ridge, and peak over
peak, — a wild scene of utter barrenness and confusion,
emphasizing by the contrast of its hopeless aridity the
fertility of the other side. An enormous isolated peak
of dark-colored rock, in shape like a huge pillar, four-

SAINT HELENA. 153
teen hundred and forty-four feet high, is named ' Lot ; '
and another, somewhat smaller, of similar shape, is, of
course, ' Lot's Wife.' Two small sharply pointed peaks,
standing side by side, projected against the sky from the
highest southern ridge, bear the accurately descriptive
name of ' The Ass's Ears.'
An importation into Saint Helena having far more
important and permanent effect on the island than the
residence of the great Napoleon himself, took place in
1840. A slave-ship was captured on the West Coast of
Africa, and sent to Saint Helena for condemnation ;
and in some timber landed from this ship the termites,
or white ants (Termes tenuis), had found a lodgment.
From this single importation they have spread through
Jamestown and its immediate vicinity, carrying destruc
tion wherever they go. Fortunately they have not
spread far from the town, and it has been suggested
that having been landed on the leeward side of the
island, they cannot make their way in the winged or
perfect state against the steady trade-wind. I quote
from J. C. Melliss's Saint Helena instances of their
destructive power and method of working : —
' The conditions almost indispensable to them are,
heat with moisture, darkness, and perfect stillness ; so
that they rarely attack doors, window-sashes, or things
that are frequently in motion. What they love best is
a water-cask in a sunny place, or a massive tie-beam of
a building, into which they enter by one or two holes
no larger than pins' heads, and trouble no one until
the whole collapses in a cloud of dirt and dust, perhaps
bringing down the building with it. . . .

154 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
' Termes tenuis is the most voracious species I ever
heard or read of, — its whole object in life seeming to
be destruction. It spares none of its time for domestic
arrangements, or the construction of those curiously
formed homes, in the shape of hillocks or mounds, with
which other species amuse or occupy themselves in the
desert plains of tropical Africa and elsewhere. . . .
'After their appearance in town, a quarter of a
century passed by without much evidence of the terrible
work of destruction in which they were engaged. It
was known that they were eating books, furniture,
papers, and clothes, with occasionally a beam or two
in the houses ; but no one entertained the idea that
in an additional five or six years the houses would
be in ruins, and an expenditure of sixty thousand
pounds sterling imperatively necessary to reconstruct
them. . . .
' The Saint Helena termites are fragile little crea
tures, of a dirty-white color, about one-third of an inch
long, and succumb immediately on exposure to bright
sunshine. In proportion to about ten of the workers,
there is one armed with a formidable pair of red for
ceps, an eighth of an inch in length, which is called
a soldier. This creature superintends the work done
by the others, and- acts the part of a sentinel, giving
immediate notice throughout the band, or colony, of
the approach of danger.
' It is most curious to watch them at work, building
a tunnel or covered passage by which to travel from
one spot to another ; for they do everything under
cover, and nothing by the broad light of day. The

SAINT HELENA. 155
work proceeds by pellet after pellet of a sticky brown
mud-like matter which they employ, being added round
the edge from the inside, and moistened to make it
adhere to the rest. Occasionally, as a worker deposits
his pellet and retires, up bobs the great head and red
forceps of a soldier, as it were from a watch-tower, for
a general view around to see that all is right, and, if it
is not so, his excitement becomes very great.
'In the year 1860, when His Royal Highness the
Duke of Edinburgh visited Saint Helena, the reception-
room at the Castle was in sufficiently good order for
him to hold a levee, and for a Governor's ball on the
same evening ; six years afterwards it was a complete
ruin! ' Amongst other valuable property, they devoured a
considerable portion of the books of the Public Library,
showing a decided preference for theological literature
[yet Mr Melliss has just said that moisture is indis
pensable !], very probably because such works generally
remain longest untouched on bookshelves.'
Being quite ignorant of the appearance of this insect,
I expressed a wish to the proprietor of the Saint Helena
newspaper to see one. 'Never saw a white ant ? ' he
exclaimed in astonishment. We were standing before
a type-case, and he struck the front of it a light blow
with his hand. The wood gave way as though it had
been paper, and ants, powdered wood, and the debris
of termite occupation came tumbling to the floor. The
whole substance of the wood had been eaten away,
leaving a mere shell, thinner than paper, yet nowhere
had it been eaten through. The surface was perfectly

156 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
intact, and gave not the slightest evidence to the eye
of the destruction within.
Aside from the pathetic interest thrown around the
island by the enforced residence of Napoleon, it has
another charm, perhaps equally pathetic. There is no
inhabited spot on Saint Helena which does not show
convincing evidence of ' better days ' now passed away.
It is not that every important height is crowned by
a fortification, ungarrisoned and falling into ruin ; nor
the absence of shipping in the harbor ; nor the shops
in the little town with few goods, fewer customers, and
high prices : the impression of the decay of former
prosperity does not come from these ; it arises from
the number of once beautiful residences now deserted,
scattered over the island. Dwellings constructed of
costly materials, and evidently planned by hearts nobly
hospitable, are found in many a secluded valley, lovely
enough to be a bit of the original Eden, but with the
house closed and its former life and hospitality a tradi
tion. In my walks I came upon many such places,
and they spoke to my heart more sadly and with
greater pathos than the evidences of Bonaparte's cap
tivity ; for his was a special case, the like of which had
never occurred before, and will never occur again. But
these deserted homes appeal to the general heart of
humanity ; they are found the world over, not merely at
Saint Helena.
In my explorations of the island I accidentally dis
covered one of these deserted places, situated on the
inner slope of the great crater, which left a picture on
my mind* of quiet beauty almost too sweet for earth,

SAINT HELENA. 157
and an impression of sadness I shall always remember.
Walking along the main road leading down into the
crater, my attention was attracted by a beautiful,
home-like cottage, surrounded by a well-kept garden
and shaded by magnificent trees. A side road led
from the principal highway toward the house, and I
turned into this quiet path to have a nearer view.
Soon I came to another path on my right so temptingly
beautiful that I determined to explore it. The first
few rods had been hewn through a narrow lava ridge,
and the perpendicular sides of the cut were clothed
from bottom to top with tender, airy ferns, vivid green
in color, and trembling in the gentle breeze with the
lissome grace of ostrich plumes. A few steps forward
brought into sight a double hedge of hydrangea, a per
fect mass of bloom, showing no green through the wall
of flowers. For a few moments I stood in silent ad
miration of the beauty of this hidden nook. Right
and left drooped from the rocks the feathery ferns,
pulsating with tropic life ; before me the great clusters
of hydrangea nodded in the sunshine with coquettish
grace. A little farther along, the road turned to the
left through an opening in the flowery hedge, and ter
minated at the door of a house apparently deserted,
except that some colored children were on the lawn,
playing with a diminutive donkey whose melancholy
eyes could not have looked out on this sinful world
more than two or three months.
While examining the place from the road, a colored
man, the care-taker of the house, came forward and
invited me to look at the premises. Honeysuckle,

158 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
passion-flower, and climbing roses draped the whole
front of the house, filling the soft air with richest
fragrance. A steep slope from the western side of
the lawn terminated in a narrow valley, overgrown
at the bottom by wild ginger, and the play of the
wind on the leaves gave the exact effect of a green,
rushing torrent, its surface thrown into sharp ripples
by the vehemence of its motion ; the racemes of pale
papilionaceous flowers forming the feathery, foaming
breakers of this vegetable river. On the farther side
of the valley was a large field of New Zealand flax,
green and lush, as if still growing in its far-away
native mountain region. South of the house the
ground fell precipitously down to a broken rocky val
ley, and beyond rose ridges and peaks of barren lava,
cutting the soft blue of the tropical sky with a sharply
serrated horizon line.
Entering the house I felt that this must have been
the scene of a romance, some tragic story of love or
hate; possibly an idyllic life of quiet happiness found
here a home so lovely and free from earth's annoyances
that, when the final call came, no shock was felt at the
transfer from this beautiful spot to the scarcely more
beautiful heaven of faith. The doors were of solid
mahogany; the knobs, locks, and hinges were brass,
doubtless in former days kept polished to the last
degree of brightness, for, though now dim with the
gathered patina of years, the surfaces were as true as
those of an astronomical instrument. The lofty walls
were delicately and tastefully frescoed in distemper,
but stained in many places by water entering through
the decaying roof.

SAINT HELENA. 159
A few heavy pieces of furniture of San Domingo
mahogany elaborately carved, and almost black with
age, stood in some of the rooms. A magnificent side
board, beautifully ornamented with intricate carving,
I at first supposed to be of ebony, but, like the rest of
the furniture, it was of mahogany, and owed its dark
color to age. It had been degraded from its first
high estate, and was now heaped with pots, pans,
kettles, and all kinds of kitchen debris. I thought
of Shakespeare's —
' Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.'
To such general questions regarding the former
inhabitants as I felt justified in asking, I could get no
very definite answers, — not, as it appeared, that there
was anything to conceal, no hidden crime, no story of
romantic love which I had hoped to hear, but because
they had probably led the commonplace life of the great
majority, satisfied with the lovely situation, and the ro
mance of the natural surroundings. As I passed from
room to room, I expected at the opening of every door
to be ushered into the presence of a shadowy family, —
the rightful and, to me, the real occupants. The good-
natured and laughing care-taker and his plump and
jolly wife, ' black but comely,' seemed less real than
the ghosts I conjured up of those who had lived, loved,
and died in this Eden of tranquillity.
There are many other places in Saint Helena de
serted like this, but none more beautiful in quiet loneli
ness and pathetic decay. No other house is visible

160 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
from the place ; the lava ridge through which the road
leading to the spot is cut, shuts from view all of the
inhabited parts of the crater. It is a little world by
itself, overhung by the tropical sky, and brilliant with
gay flowers escaped from the garden ; and, climbing the
hillside, their masses of scarlet blossoms glow like
patches of yet burning volcanic fire.
Turning away from the loveliness of this peaceful
place, I realized a little of the hysterica passio which
must have ¦• swelled the breast of Adam as he left the
gate of Paradise to face the unknown world. So
charming was the quiet, the perfect repose, and the
abounding life of Nature in this hidden nook, that
I felt a passionate regret that I must leave it all and
return to the every-day world. I was more than filled
with its sweetness ; the pulse of my enjoyment seemed
ready to stop with fulness.
' With melody's divine excess the crowded reed may break.'

CHAPTER VIIL
A WALK FROM JAMESTOWN TO LONGWOOD.  THE EXILE
OF NAPOLEON. — LEGEND OF 'THE FRIAR.'
j]HE highway from Jamestown to Long-
wood leads through scenery not only
picturesque but iinique. The mountains
are so precipitous that the road is led
diagonally up the side, climbing along
the steep slope, then turning at a sharp angle and
proceeding in almost the opposite direction for a fur
long or less, when another turn is made, shifting again
to nearly the opposite point of the compass, changing
continually until the top is reached, the road along
this taking every possible direction from the necessity
of following the very crooked ridge.
About a mile from Jamestown, on the right of the
main highway, and considerably below its level, stands
'The Briars.' This place is lovely enough to be cele
brated for beauty alone, but it is famous the world over
as the home where Bonaparte lived for nearly two
months, while the house at Longwood, selected for his
permanent residence, was being put in order for his
reception. He occupied a small, partially detached
building, now known as the ' Briars Pavilion.'
The next house of historical note is ' Alarm House,'
a two-story white building, commanding a view of the
11

162 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
harbor, and also quite a long stretch of the road to
ward both Jamestown and Longwood. Soldiers were
stationed here .to give the alarm in case of any attempt
at Napoleon's rescue or escape.
Beyond this house, at no great distance, the road
leads out to the windward side of the ridge, giving a
view of a deep, barren valley, called 'Sane Valley,'
or, more popularly, ' Devil's Punch Bowl.' It is spot
ted here and there with gorse bushes, their vivid yellow
blossoms making a beautiful contrast with the sombre,
gray-green foliage. The ridge at this point is exposed
to the full force of the southeast trade-wind, and some
scattered pines growing on the extreme edge are bent
and twisted into shapes which would have given Gus-
tave Dore" new ideas for the expression of immeasur
able agony.
A few steps farther bring into view on the left a
large gate with massive stone posts, and on a sign be
side it, in both French and English, is written ' Tomb
of Napoleon.' From the gate a quiet grassy road, or
path, leads gradually down into the valley toward a
group of trees, conspicuous among them the pointed
tops and formal shape of the Norfolk island pine.
In the midst of these trees, which are enclosed by a
nearly circular picket fence, the tomb is situated, hav
ing the additional protection of an inner fence, rec
tangular in shape, of iron paling. On one side, just
within the outer enclosure, pours out a spring of clear
and deliciously cool water. Napoleon used quite fre
quently to walk down from Longwood, to get a draught
from this spring ; and when the weather was unf avor-

£"-#_r ¦**"

r4fc *GLZS>

im ¦¦¦igilliifllL.il --
Z

^**j*

gs-'-Sv*'

s§s

'THE BRIARS,' SAINT HELENA.
First Residence of Napoleon on the Island.
164 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
able for walking, he sent for a supply. for the day,
preferring this water to any other on the island. It
was while sitting by the spring that he chose the
little glen as the place where he wished to be buried.
The present keeper, a gray-haired old negro, said that
he remembered Napoleon, and had seen him many
times when walking or riding for exercise. When I
asked if he had ever spoken to the Emperor, his look
of astonishment was actually ludicrous. 'Lord bless
you, no ! I was 'most afraid to look at him.' As the
old man claimed to be, and apparently was, much over
eighty years of age, his statement of having seen Bona
parte is not improbable.
This old keeper gave me, in quite minute detail, an
account of the attempted escape of Napoleon by means
of a balloon. It was made, or to be made, of white
silk, and the ex-Emperor and all of his attendant
officers, servants, and the ladies of his suite were to
embark in the aerial vessel and proceed direct for
France. When I suggested that the southeast trade-
wind would have been more apt to land him in
America than France, the fine scorn expressed in his
countenance for my hopeless ignorance was inimitably
caustic : ' they was goin' to have a great bellus and
blow the balloon to France ; but they was betrayded,
and the silk and bellus was took away.' Not a shadow
of doubt was in his mind as to the ultimate success of
the scheme, had the projectors not been 'betrayded.'
It was evident that his sympathy was entirely with the
captive, and his disgust for the traitor had not been
cooled by seventy years of contemplation.

NAPOLEON'S TOMB.

166 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Returning to the main road, the next point of inter
est is ' Hutt's Gate,' the residence of Count Bertrand
and his family while attending the fallen fortune of
their imperial master. It is now a little wayside
hostelry, and a convenient resting-place for the pilgrim
on his way from Jamestown to Longwood. Not far
from this place is a hill, still called ' Halley' s Mount,'
where the English astronomer Edmund Halley built
an observatory in 1676. A brief notice of the work
done at this station may be found on page 140. Some
remains of the foundation are still visible.
A few rods beyond Hutt's Gate, the road passes
along a very narrow ridge, looking down on the left
into the ' Devil's Punch Bowl.' This deep valley nar
rows at the upper end into the little glen where the
tomb is situated. On the right is Longwood farm, a
lovely vale of unsurpassed fertility, containing several
houses, half hidden by the dark foliage of tropical
trees ; while cattle grazing on the steep hillsides, and
pleasant sounds from the farm, give the scene an air
of quiet, peaceful domestic life as unexpected as de
lightful. Less than a mile beyond this the road leads up to a
small but massively built stone lodge standing beside
the entrance to the outer enclosure of Longwood.
About a furlong from the lodge is the gate of the
inner grounds. The place is kept in perfect order, the
flower garden being especially beautiful. There is no
furniture in the house, absolutely nothing to attract
attention, except a marble bust of Napoleon ; the
pedestal standing on the exact spot occupied by his bed

THE APPROACH TO LONGWOOD, SAINT HELENA.

168 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
at the time of his death. The features are accurately
copied from a mask taken from the Emperor's face
immediately after death, and therefore present a cor
rect likeness, though a laurel wreath has been added
by the artist.
In 1858 Longwood and the site of the tomb were
purchased by Napoleon the Third, and ' Longwood Old
House' was carefully restored as nearly as possible
to its state when occupied by the Emperor. But
there was a difficulty in regard to the wall-paper, as
not a shred of the original could be found. Thirty
years before an Englishman visiting Longwood carried
away, as a souvenir, a piece of the paper from each
room, and, hearing of the dilemma of the French Gov
ernment, promptly sent his relics to Paris; and from
these specimens, probably the only ones in existence,
a reproduction of the original was made and hung on
the walls of Longwood. The property is under the
charge of an officer of the French army, Lieutenant
Morilleau, who resides in ' Longwood New House.'
Napoleon's remains lay in the peaceful island for
nearly twenty years, and were then removed to Paris,
in 1840. To this day, in talking with any one of the
more aged inhabitants of Saint Helena, whatever may
be the opening subject of conversation, he will inevi
tably drift round to the impressive and melancholy
pageant stirring the quiet valleys and lava hills of
the island with the peaceful tramp of men who still
mourned the death of their great leader, and crossed
the stormy waters of the Atlantic to bear his ashes
to sunny France and lay them finally to rest, as he

LI

sfe

*' Ac' -
-%Sg86' Quey?--

PORTER'S LODGE, LONGWOOD, NAPOLEON'S RESIDENCE AT SAINT HELENA.

170 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
had requested, on the banks of the Seine, in the fair
city he loved so well.
' Why break ye the rest on the lone isle's breast
Of the hero of modern story?
Oh, leave him alone on the rocky throne
Ye gave as a meed for his glory.
' For his memory, meet is the lordly" beat
Of eagles' wings over his tomb,
And meet for his dirge the chainless surge
And wild winds o'er ocean that roam.
*
' A bright orb he sprang where morning stars sang,
From darkness he burst with a glare ;
He hurled from their spheres the stars of past years
To fix his own galaxy there.
' And all stood aghast as the meteor passed
Through the lurid and threatening sky,
And faint grew the bold as thundering rolled
The car of his destiny by.'
Saint Helena has other legends than those relating
to the captivity of Napoleon and the removal of his
remains, — legends descending from, or attributed to, a
far remoter time. One of these relates to what is
known as ' Friar's Valley,' a deep, rocky, and sterile
gorge, having at the lower end a singular, isolated
basaltic rock, somewhat resembling in the distance a
cloaked and hooded human figure. Concerning this
rock the legend runneth as follows : —
'Let all be warned by the doleful story of the priest
Ambrosius, to hold fast by the true faith and stifle not the
warnings of conscience. For so as Lot's wife, not heeding the
command of the angel, looked back, out of wicked curiosity,
to see the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and was

BUST OF NAPOLEON. (Made from the Death-Mask.)

172 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
changed in the twinkling of an eye to a pillar of salt, with
no time granted her to be assoilzied of her sin ; right so
was Ambrosius stricken of God in the very moment of his
wickedness. ' Now Ambrosius had, up to these latter days, led a saint
like life, and the people of the whole island rose up and
called him blessed, for because he had been a friend and helper
in their days of sorrow and trouble ; save only a few families
of heathenesse, which some averred were of Saracen descent,
and worshippers of Mahound. Now among these Paynim
folk was a damozelle of wondrous beauty, the like of whom
was never, I wot, seen aforetime in the island ; for being of
eastern descent her complexion was a clear, dark olive, and
her hair was black, even as black as the shining rock which
is sometimes heaved up from the fires of the volcano, and
which some aver comes direct from the pit of Tophet. How-
beit, her eyes were of a soft, tender blue, of which colored
eyes ensamples are rare in those of Saracen parentage, and
fitted to enthrall the very elect. Nathless, looked one intently
at her forehead he could see, an he were not blinded by her
beauty, a faint mark, in shape like unto the new moon when
it is seen in the western heavens, what time the sun has just
sunk below the hills ; whereof some say that this mark of the
beast was impressed on her forehead of Sathanas himself, at
the time of her birth, as a sign that she should be a worship
per of Mahound until her death, and her soul thereafter de
livered over to the foul fiend as his lawful prey forever.
' Howbeit, both she and all her kindred folk, heathen though
they were, lived peaceful and kindly lives, troubling not their
Christian neighbors, save only that they despised the min
istrations of Holy Church, and attended not the sacred offices,
neither paid tithes of their substance to the priests of God.
' Now I hold ye all to wit that the Enemy of mankind can
make use of a man's very virtues as a means of temptation,
as witness the fall of Ambrosius. One evening, an it were

LONGWOOD (Old House), SAINT HELENA.
Napoleon died in the room under the Dormer.

174 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
soon after vesper time, he fared forth to the next valley to
shrive a dying man, when on a hill near at hand he encoun
tered the Paynim damsel, sad and weary, for her father's goats,
the which she had been tending, had strayed so far from their
accustomed pasture ground, that many of them she could not
find, and others refused to take the homeward way. She told
the holy man her trouble and prayed of his assistance.
Eftsoons the scattered flock was collected, and driven home
ward, the priest and maiden holding much discourse the
while, though I wis it be not altogether of religion that
either spake.
'Well would it have been had Ambrosius gone his way
and thought no more of the heathen damsel, but not so
was it to be, for the foul fiend had already entered into his
heart and abode with him to the end. Again, and many times
thereafter he sought her father's hut, and rounded into her
ear his story of love; forgetting his vows, he entreated her
to become his wife, what time they would take ship for some
country of heathenesse, where their happiness should be so
great that not Paradise itself could increase it, and they should
not be anathema maranatha. Long time resisted the maiden,
nor would she yield at last, save only on the condition that
he renounce his Christian faith and become a believer in
Mahound. For because his love was so great, he consented
even to this deadly sin. And as he could not at once cast
out from his heart all the old reverence for the church he had
denied, even so he entreated the damozelle to stand with him
before the altar where for so many years he had officiated,
what time the evening services were done, and the people all
departed, there would he take her hand and before the altar
declare to whatso spirit or angel might be listening, that he
took her to wife forever.
' The evening was dark and forbidding. A moaning wind
swept around the church and seemed almost to voice a solemn
warning against the deadly sin about to be committed. It

U. S. S. PENSACOLA. Target Practice off Saint Helena— 'Haul in!'

176 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
hath been averred by certain idlesse, that sad but sweet voices
were heard echoing along the groined arches, like unto voices
saying, " Let us go hence ; let us go hence." Howbeit, when
they twain stood before the altar, or ever a word was spoken,
with a crash and a roar, like as if it were the judgment day,
the solid ground opened, and from the dreadful chasm arose
smoke and fire the which first wrapped the church in its
deadly fold and then drew it down into the nether Tophet.
Then the ground closed once more, and nothing could be seen
in the once beautiful valley but barren ground and ashes.
The church was gone, the lovely palms were gone, nothing
remained save only the apostate Ambrosius, turned into stone,
stood at the entrance of the valley, an it were to watch forever
over the scene of his guilty happiness and its speedy punish
ment. And there, in the Friar's valley, he stands, even to this
day. May God assoilzie his sin ! '
The Expedition having completed its work, we left
beautiful Saint Helena, with grateful recollections of
unnumbered courtesies from Governor Antrobus and
other officials, from our Consul and private inhabitants,
all of whom seemed to study every method for our
entertainment. We had stored our memories witn
pictures of scenery beautiful and grand, yet we came
away with the feeling that, lovely as the island is in
its natural features, it will be visited, while men navi
gate the seas, more for its historic associations than for
mere natural beauty ; because there terminated a career
unparalleled for military success and unparalleled for
its tremendous downfall.

CHAPTER IX.

ASCENSION.

ONDAY, 10th March, 146th day out. — To-day
at eleven o'clock our anchor was lifted, and
we left Saint Helena bound for the island
of Ascension, northwest about seven hundred
miles distant. The Governor, our Consul, and
several of our friends came aboard to bid us
God-speed; and after they had taken leave, the Pensacola took
the southeast trade-wind in its broad sails, and pushed rapidly
toward the northwest. Sailing along the shore, we opened
the valley having at the upper end Plantation House, the Gov
ernor's residence. In the distance the house was a mere point
of white set in the vivid green of tropical trees ; and as the
northern bluff shut out the familiar landscape, we bade a final
good-bye to hospitable Saint Helena.
Wednesday, 12th March, 148th day out. — The weather is
perfect. Bright clouds drift along the horizon, full of sunshine.
Mother Carey chickens follow in the wake of the Pensacola,
picking up all edible debris thrown overboard; porpoises dis
port themselves clumsily in the blue water; dolphins play
around the stern of the vessel, and now and then a shark
shoots alongside, and looks up to the deck with a pathetic,
imploring, hungry eye, as if asking for a dinner, — waiting for
us to toss over to him a plump baby or some malingering sailor ;
either would be acceptable to him, and neither of any use to
us. But we happen to have no malingerers, and babies are
as scarce on the Pensacola as Democrats after a Bepublican
victory; so the poor shark swims alongside, disappointed, hun-
12

178 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
gry, disconsolate, yet expectant. I pointed out the pathetic
sight to one of the expedition, and suggested that as the most
important of our observations had already been made, one or
two members could well be spared, and proposed that he jump
overboard to find out whether the poor shark was really suf
fering from hunger or not. If the fish did not disturb him, it
would prove either his good taste or his lack of appetite ; in
that case we would haul him aboard again. It is a perennial
source of wonder to me that friendly suggestions of this nature
are not more kindly received. The scientist whom I addressed
looked at ma a moment in reproachful silence, and then said,
'Jump overboard yourself,' which appeared to me neither a
parallel nor an original remark.
And so we sailed away, ever farther and farther into
the blue northwest, until on a bright Sunday morning,
the 16th March, a faint gray mound seemed to rise out
of the sea and slowly approach us. Then the mound
rose higher and higher, separated into a multitude of
sharp conical peaks of conspicuous colors, — red, brown,
yellow, and black, — and overtopping all of the hills
was Green Mountain, three thousand feet high, itself
overtopped by a threatening gray cloud, sweeping
swiftly across the summit, dropping rain on the wind
ward, but totally disappearing on the leeward side.
And this was Ascension, a little pin-point on the map
of the world, — a tiny volcanic island, between seven
and eight miles long and about six miles wide, in
extreme dimensions, having an area of less than thirty-
four square miles.
Ascension occupies the unique position of being at one
and the same time an island and a ship. Geographi
cally it is, of course, an island about eight degrees south

ASCENSION.

179

of the equator ; officially it is, not equally of course, a
ship, being borne on Her Britannic Majesty's Naval
Register as the Penelope Tender. Naval discipline is
the rule, — lights out at ten o'clock, and no smoking,
except at certain times and places ; in fact, man-of-war
rules govern Ascension. There are no inhabitants, in
the proper sense, on the island. Naval officers are

ASCENSION ISLAND — GARRISON AND FORT THORNTON.

ordered there for three years, just as they are ordered
to join a war-ship for a cruise of that length of time ;
and their three years' residence at Ascension counts in
the service the same as a three years' cruise afloat,
the only difference being that the officers have their
families with them. It is the practice of the govern
ment to order to Ascension such officers only as have
families.

180 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Like everything else connected with this singular
little island, the method of landing is unique; it is
always exciting, and sometimes dangerous. The surf
is a perpetual fact. It is heavier at some times than
at others; but, light or heavy, it is always present.
The trade-wind in its long march over sixty degrees
of latitude, from its unknown origin in the mysterious
Antarctic Ocean, tosses the blue water into waves which
sweep steadily northwestward ; and when these mighty
rollers encounter Ascension, they swirl around the little
volcanic rock, and, meeting on the leeward or northwest
shore, reinforce each other, — the crest of one piling its
ridge of translucent blue on the crest of another, and
the combined mass, sweeping shoreward in vast breakers,
thunders on the jagged lava rock, to be broken into
driving foam and prismatic spray. The rollers are not
always equally high. Sometimes landing is impossible
for several successive days. Then the water will gradu
ally subside, and it is comparatively easy to reach shore,
— sometimes even with dry clothing and feet. The
landing-place is called ' Tartar Stairs,' and is merely a
flight of twenty-two steps, cut in the extreme outward
end of a projecting promontory of lava. Above these
steps two strong iron rods project horizontally, and
from the end of each depends a stout rope. In landing,
the boat is brought as near the stairs as the breakers
will permit ; one of the ropes is swung out by the pier-
tender and caught by the person about to land, and
when the wave lifts the boat to the proper level, a
spring is made for the steps, and not infrequently per
sons reach dry land without being actually drowned.

ASCENSION. 181
In the interest of his own safety, it is necessary for
the person landing not to relinquish his hold of the
rope until he is well on land and above the reach of
the water ; for it is not unusual to miss the landing at
the first trial, and in that case the return oscillation
swings him far out over the breakers, where his safety
depends on the strength of his hands and the tenacity
of his grasp.
Sunday, 16th March, 152nd day out. — When Columbus
landed on the shores of the New World, the unfamiliar scene he
looked upon could not have seemed more strange to him than
did the unique island of Ascension to me. This little island
has a great variety of scenery, — hills of cinder, ridges of lava
rock, acres of clinker sharp as broken glass, plains of ashes,
miniature canons, the desolation of a desert, and a wild luxu
riance of vegetable life. From the landing at Tartar Stairs,
a road leads to Green Mountain, seven and a half miles away,
— leads, it may be said, from a grim aridity and heat like
Sahara to the shadowy coolness and lush luxuriance of a
tropical jungle.
From the pier a flagged walk leads to the Naval storehouses,
to the Captain's office, to the quarters of the officers, to the
little church and the hospital. This collection of houses is
marked on charts of the island as Georgetown, but it is always
called Garrison by those stationed at Ascension.
The island in ordinary seasons is supplied with water
from the rainfall on Green Mountain. Collected from
every available water-shed, it is run into large iron
tanks, and from these led in pipes down to Garrison.
When the rain fails, as in some seasons, the distilling
apparatus is brought into use.

182 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
The Captain's office is a two-story building ; then
come long one-story cottages with broad verandas,
used for officers' quarters ; beyond these a large, airy,
comfortable hospital, and still farther along a cemetery.
Every cottage has a little garden in front ; but these
gardens are unique, and decidedly Ascensionesque.
Their boundaries are defined by small blocks of lava,
and the space enclosed is covered by glittering white
beach sand. This sand is then shaped into flowers,
geometrical, arabesque, and other figures, by a broom
or scraper, and the pattern varied from day to day to
avoid the weariness of monotony. Of actual, living
flowers, grass, or even weeds, there are absolutely none.
The street is sand, the gardens are sand, the flowers are
sand ; and when the wind blows, which it always does,
the atmosphere is a mixture of air and sand.
The superlative of desolation is reached at the
cemetery. The graves are dug through ashes, scoriae,
lava, and pumice-stone. The mounds, defined by a
border of lava blocks, are covered with sand; but no
rose, no shrub, nor even the humble grass softens with
tender ministry the dark rigidity of the terrible lava.
All that loving hands can do is done ; but at best, it is
burying the dead in the slag of a furnace.
The road to heaven is doubtless as short and direct
from the Ascension cemetery as from Mount Auburn,
Greenwood, or Forest Hills ; but for myself I desire
to avoid the horror of a grave scooped in lava and
heaped with volcanic cinder.
I approach the description of Ascension with great
diffidence ; for one of the most charming books in our

ASCENSION.

183

language is about the same island, — Mrs David Gill's
Six Months in Ascension (London, 1880).
It was on this island that Dr Gill located his tempo
rary observatory in 1877, and made observations of
the planet Mars for the purpose of determining the
solar parallax; and in her book Mrs Gill has related
the story of their haps and mishaps with a Defoe-like

_. . _: <n^^aa_  .
ASCENSION ISLAND — NEAR VIEW OF THE 'CLINKER.'
minuteness and a lucid simplicity. The reader enters
into all of the hopes and fears, privations and disappoint
ments, felt and suffered by herself and her husband,
and triumphs with them in the final grand success
of the astronomical enterprise. Few ladies have ever
taken so difficult and dangerous a walk as that which
she so graphically describes, over the cinder and lava
of Ascension at night, in search of the edge of a cloud.
But she found it, and, by consequence, the observatory

184 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
was moved to the site where Dr Gill achieved his
splendid success.
Having read Mrs Gill's delightful book, I quite
appreciate the feelings of the man who, intending to
write a drama, felt discouraged that Shakespeare had
written before him. But identical objects do not give
the same impressions to different eyes, and Ascension
is sufficiently peculiar and interesting to warrant the
attempt to tell its story a second time.
The day after the Pensacola dropped anchor in
Clarence Bay, I landed and walked to the top of Green
Mountain. I doubt whether another seven miles, so
dusty, so barren, and so hot, can be found on the earth,
unless possibly at Aden. The road winds around the
foot of Cross Hill on the south side. The dust is deep>
sharp as ground emery, dirty yellow in color, and so
fine that the least breath of wind lifts clouds in the air,
and invariably drives it upon the unfortunate wayfarer.
There is no escape from this all-pervading dirt-cloud.
The iron pipe which conveys the rain-water from Green
Mountain to Georgetown is placed near the road, and at
intervals there are large iron tanks. Occasionally one
is provided with a faucet, enabling the traveller to draw
water for quenching his thirst ; and it may be said that
Ascension thirst is an imperious and overpowering sen
sation. Before reaching the first tank from which water
can be drawn, I felt as if all my radical moisture had
permanently evaporated. I was so desiccated that I
feared some puff of the trade-wind, a little stronger
than usual, would lift me from my feet and drive me
across the cinder plain, a whirling cloud of pulverous

ASCENSION. 185
humanity. At last I reached ' God-be-thanked ' tank,
and the water on its way to Garrison was suddenly
diminished in quantity by a measured quart. No one
can imagine how refreshing lukewarm water can be,
until he has walked five miles on the cinder plains of
Ascension. A mile or two beyond this tank signs of
vegetable life began to increase. A few angular and
thorny cacti appeared, defying with their tough wiry
roots and thick skin the burning soil and the deadly
arrows of the sun. In certain spots, here and there,
a low acacia-bush has taken root in the heated ashes ;
and mixed with its feathery foliage are fluffy spheres
of yellow blossoms, and pendent seed-pods of polished
brown. Near the foot of one of the dark hills of. ash and
tufa are two lonely palm-trees, fighting for their lives
in the midst of that arid desolation. They are too far
from Green Mountain to receive, except very rarely,
any of the rain-fall refreshing that fortunate peak so
constantly. Year after year they have stood there,
their dull green crowns pushed out of all symmetry by
the steady unrelenting pressure of the eternal trade-
wind, — their frond-like leaves whipped and slit into
shapeless ribbons, and only at long and weary intervals
refreshed by the blessed baptism of a pouring shower.
I could not divest myself of a feeling that these lonely
trees looked back with helpless regret to that long-
past time when they sprang straight and vigorous from
the rich moist soil of some tropical forest, rejoicing in
their young life, and ready to lift their green heads day
by day near and nearer to the purple sky. Then the

186 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
spoiler came, and they were torn from the delicious
freshness of the rich dark earth and dripping mosses
of their sweet native forest, and planted here, where
the blasting sunshine beat ever on their unsheltered
heads, and rain-showers and dew existed not save as a
dream of youth. Overhead a sky of brass, seven times
heated; beneath, dry cinder and ashes. Naught was
left save their own companionship, and the refresh
ment of night, when the scorching sun disappeared
below the far sea-horizon, leaving them for a few hours
alone with darkness, the stars, and each other.
Nearer the foot of Green Mountain, several kinds of
flowers dot the arid ground, especially the vinca rosea,
with flowers pure white, and others pale rose-color, both
with a peculiar bitter but not unpleasant odor. Now
and then a tuft of coarse grass, dried into hay as it
stood, showed a laudable attempt at hiding the naked
ness of the ground. Immediately at the foot of the
mountain, at the beginning of the zigzag road, called
' The Ramps,' leading up a spur of Green Mountain, are
two old whaleboats, standing upright with their sterns
buried in the cinder. Each one has a board fastened
across, making pleasant shaded seats, where one can
rest before beginning to climb the Ramps. At this
point also is a sign which reads, ' To Dampier's
Spring.' Continuing to climb, I was more and more astonished
at the change in vegetable life. Below a perfect desert ;
here a tropical garden. Below, insufferable heat and
a drought seemingly unbroken for a century ; here,
ground saturated with water, and the air cool and

ASCENSION. 187
damp under drifting clouds depositing their life-giving
moisture continually, either as rain, or a heavy mist
condensing on the grass and trees in dripping dew.
The higher I ascended the richer and. more luxuriant
grew the flowers and foliage ; vines and creepers climbed,
twisted, and twined themselves around tree and shrub,
making tangled thickets and dense shaded jungles, full
of tropical energy and growth. And every vine and
leaf and grass-blade dripped with the cool moisture
brought from far southern seas by the never-failing
trade-wind, which, as it slides up the slope of the
mountain, expands and drops the priceless water, giving
rich luxuriance where otherwise would be an uninhabit
able desert. As I neared the highest peak, the ground
grew more wet, and at last was so muddy that I had
to pick my way carefully to avoid standing pools and
swampy places.
Reaching the top, I sat down, looking northwestward
toward Garrison, five miles away in a straight line ; and
then I began to comprehend the singularity of Ascen
sion. I sat apparently under the edge of the drifting
cloud which brings all this fertility, while seemingly
just at my feet was the desolation of the Lybian desert.
The whole extent of the fertile part of the island cannot
be more than five or six thousand acres, and is entirely
confined to Green Mountain. It is a little pocket
climate, — a duodecimo edition of the tropics. Through
my field-glass I could see the officers and men at Garri
son, sweltering in the burning sunshine, under white
umbrellas and pith helmets, the fine dust drifting in
clouds at every puff of wind ; and where I sat, I

188 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
needed to button my coat closely to keep comfortably
warm, — the cool trade-wind, bearing even yet some
traces of its birthplace in Antarctic ice, blowing away
from me even the remembrance of heat and drought.
It is interesting to sit on the windward side of Green
Mountain, at a height about half-way between sea-level
and the peak, and watch the formation of the cloud
which so constantly brings shade, coolness, and water
to this part of Ascension.
On a level with the watcher, or perhaps a little
below him, but apparently almost within reach of his
hand, a few ragged flecks of gray vapor form in the
blue sky, and drift rapidly to leeward, rising as they
approach the peak. Before reaching the height of the
mountain other patches of vapor have joined the first,
and still others unite with these until a dense cloud is
formed, hanging over the peak, sometimes for days
together, always depositing a store of water, either as
a dewy mist, condensing on the foliage and dripping
continually to the ground, or as actual rain. Although
the cloud as a whole is motionless, its constituent parts
are perpetually sweeping to leeward, driven by the
southeast trade-wind. The cloud pours down the lee-
side a cataract of cool gray vapor, growing thinner as
it descends ; quick glimpses of blue sky are caught
through the veil as it reaches a lower level, and at
about the same height at which it formed on the other
side it is completely dissolved and disappears.
Sunday, 6th April, 113rd day out. — While lying at Ascen
sion, Professor Todd and myself decided to break up a little
the monotony of life on shipboard, by going to Green Moun-

ASCENSION. 189
tain on Saturday, remaining over Sunday, and returning to the
Pensacola on Monday. Cots and blankets were sent up from
the ship to Barker Cottage, assigned for our use, and we were
driven up in the ambulance, arriving just in time for luncheon.
Afterward we climbed to the extreme top of the mountain,
and, descending on the opposite side, continued our walk along
broad cinder plains, — red, barren, and quivering in the fervid
sunshine. Babbits were numerous, scampering around and
hiding in the crevices of the lava rocks ; crickets were plenty,
and land-crabs also. We continued our walk to the seaward
end of a bold promontory, where we found a monument or
cairn of stones about three feet high, evidently a station used
in the survey of the island. The promontory was strewn with
lava rocks, small and large, all covered by beautiful lichens of a
brilliant orange, making the whole headland glow with intense
color in the tropical sunshine. From this point we returned
toward the mountain, climbing very slowly and carefully, for
the sun was hot and the slope very steep. About sunset the
cloud, which had been unusually thin and broken all day,
suddenly thickened, and, marshalling its gray battalions, de
scended, not perhaps ' like a wolf on the fold,' but a good deal
like a sheet dripping with cold water flapping in the face.
Through the open doors of our cottage it drifted across the hall
all night, and this morning the water stands three quarters of
an inch deep on the floor, dammed to that depth by the thick
ness of the thresholds. This was only condensed cloud, for it
did not rain during the night, though I waked several times,
and thought a heavy shower was falling; but the sound I
heard was merely the water dripping from the leaves of the
trees overhanging the roof.
After breakfast Professor Todd and myself started
out on a walk, having Crystal Bay for our objective
point. Captain Napier, R. N., the commanding officer
of the Penelope Tender, known to the outside world as

190 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
the island of Ascension, had very thoughtfully given
orders to have a guide provided, should we want one ; and
a canny Scot named Burns was assigned us. He claims
to belong to a collateral branch of the family of the poet
Burns, — a claim I believe made by all Scotchmen of that
name. However this may be, he knows most of Burns's
poetry by heart, and can repeat it with the real Scotch
accent. He is employed at Ascension as a trapper of
vermin, and sets his traps on every part of the mountain.
He receives a fixed price for all vermin caught, — for
each rat a half-penny, for one hundred land-crabs
one shilling and sixpence, for each cat one shilling
and sixpence. He takes to the paymaster the tails of
the rats, the two large claws of the crabs, and the two
ears of each cat as evidence of their destruction. The
cats are the common domestic cat run wild. The crabs
are a great nuisance, being very destructive to the vege
tation on the mountain, destroying a great many of the
vegetables raised in the garden. Burns was very talka
tive, and unusually intelligent for a man in his station.
He said that he had saved some money, and that he
should be retired in April, 1891, then to receive a
pension for life of one shilling and sixpence a day.
He told me he intended to go back to Scotland, marry
a Scotch woman of about thirty years of age, and have
a little cottage in some quiet glen, where he can live on
a few pence a day. A peck of oat-meal, enough for
two persons for a week, he told me could be bought for
fourpence, and skim-milk for ha'penny a quart. His
scheme of life is certainly modest and sensible, and
I hope it may have been realized.

COTTAGE NEAR THE SUMMIT OF GREEN MOUNTAIN, ASCENSION.

192 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Meantime we had climbed a spur of the mountain,
where on the top are the ruins of an arbor or summer-
house, and an iron tank. A steep and dangerous path
leads to a cinder slope, descending at varying grades
to the beach. This slope is composed of little lumps
of a brittle material, dark-brown in color, resting on a
substratum of light yellow dust, apparently having the
same specific gravity as the atmosphere, judging from
its facility in rising, and its determination to enter
human lungs on the same terms as air. On our left
was a deep gorge, filled with rocks of lava, rounded as
if shaped by the attrition of water ; but whence could
come the water in this frightful desert to wear down
rocks of such refractory material ? Our way led over
this gorge, across which we scrambled with great diffi
culty, and then a slope of sharp lava rocks took us to
the beach. What exhaustless stores of coolness and
refreshment the ocean holds ! Hot, tired, and thirsty,
as soon as we reached the beach, the trade-wind fanned
our heated foreheads with its mighty wings, and blew
the misty combing of the translucent breakers upon us,
until we not only forgot the burning slopes of lava and
cinder, but we became so at one with the great rollers,
bursting in a spray of foam and sound on the beach,
that we almost felt tempted to dash into the blue depth
and be drifted out by the irresistible reflux to some
far unknown country, where the shores were forever
swept by these friendly waters, whose caressing breath
had blown away all weariness and discomfort.
The sand of this beach is quite peculiar. It is
composed principally of fragments of a green, nearly

ASCENSION. 193
transparent mineral, of the color of beryl or aqua
marine, of a hardness which barely scratches glass.
Associated with it is a mineral resembling hornblende.
Collecting a few shells and some of the sand for
specimens, we set out on our return. It may be, and
probably is, very hard to climb
' The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar,'
though I never tried the experiment ; but I should like
to see the man who has successfully surmounted that
classic elevation, and seated himself comfortably in
Fame's* proud temple, attempt the cinder and lava slope
of Ascension, from Crystal Bay to Barker Cottage on
the top of Green Mountain. He would soon think of
Fame's steep as a mere hillock in comparison.
We left the beach on our return, having exhausted and
lost the contents of two of the three bottles of water
carried by the guide. One bottle he buried in the ashes
about half-way from the mountain to Crystal Bay as a
reserve for our return. Two he carried to the shore,
where we divided the water in one bottle into four
parts, each drinking a quarter ; the remaining quarter
he poured down the throat of his young dog, which had
become so tired and exhausted that on reaching the
beach, he began to drink the salt water. In stooping
to give the dog drink, the second bottle slipped out
of his knapsack, fell on a rock and broke, spilling all
the precious fluid on the thirsty sand. Then we began
the ascent. Even now I cannot recall that climb with
out feeling my moisture evaporate, my blood thicken,
and my mouth become dry beyond the point of articu-
13

194 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
lation. The day had progressed to high noon, and the
trade-wind itself, as if weary of its long journeyings,
blew in fitful puffs only, with intervals of dead calm
between. As we climbed higher, and the footing be
came rougher and more difficult, the sensation of thirst
grew in fierceness. I thought if Esau's hunger com
pared in any degree with the thirst I felt, he made a
good bargain in selling his birthright for a dinner.
Birthright! Yea, all that a man hath will he give
for — a bpttle of water. When we thought we had
reached the place where the third bottle of water had
been buried, it could not be found. We sprea'd our
selves in various directions, I crossing a gorge and
climbing a steep hill that seemed to have a familiar
look, and where I felt certain I should find the bottle ;
but while on the very top, a shout from the guide told
me that he had been more successful. For an instant I
felt like shouting back the injunction of Sairey Gamp
to Betsey Prig, ' Drink fair, wotever you do.' But I
did great injustice to Professor Todd and our worthy
guide ; and I felt ashamed then, and do even to this
day, that I should have doubted for a moment their
justice and generosity. They had reserved for me far
more than my fair share, and for the second time on
Ascension I became convinced that hot water is the
greatest gift of Providence to man.
The water was actually so heated that under ordinary
circumstances it could not have been swallowed; but
my mouth was so dry that the nerves had lost the
power of conveying sensation, and as the water was wet
I was satisfied. Continuing our walk, we struck into

ASCENSION. 195
the lower part of Breakneck valley, where, at its upper
end, the guide told us, was a tank from which water
could be drawn. Oh, how the vision of that tank drew
us on ! Thousands of gallons of water ready to flow
out upon the turn of a faucet ! Should we ever reach
it, and would there be sufficient for us all, including the
dog ? The calm confidence of the guide in the capacity
of that tank somewhat reassured us, and we went on,
thirsty but hopeful. We soon came to the outer edge,
the selvage as it were, of the carpet of vegetation which
covers the mountain and extends towards the cinder
plains growing thinner and thinner as it gets farther
away from the mountain rainfall. As we went up the
valley, the growth became thicker and more luxuriant,
— suggesting water, shade, and coolness, — and at last,
reaching a sudden turn, above us, and about an eighth
of a mile ahead, was the tank. I felt that to commem
orate my physical condition and show proper gratitude
for the gift of water, I ought to change my name
forthwith, and be called henceforth Praise God Dry
Bones !
Reaching the tank, we sat down as near the faucet as
possible, knocked off the neck of the empty bottle to
give it a more rapid pouring capacity, filled the bottle
once for each — twice for each ; at the third round
each failed to exhaust his bottleful completely, showing
that a five-thousand-gallon tank of water holds some
what more than enough to satisfy the thirst of three
men and a dog, even after a ten-mile walk over the
red-hot cinder and lava of Ascension.
After quenching our thirst, we began to notice the

196 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
demand of hunger, and from the guide's knapsack was
produced the lunch — and other things. I have said
that our guide's occupation was that of trapper, and
in his walks he always collected the evidence of the
vermin destroyed, — the rats' tails, the two ears of the
cats attached by a strip of skin, and the two large claws
of crabs. On our walk to Crystal Bay we passed many
of his traps, and in several he found captured vermin,
— a few crabs and three or four rats. Executing the
prisoners in a masterly manner, to be acquired only by
long and constant practice, he took from the remains
the members required for evidence, re-set the traps
and went on, packing away the tails, ears, and claws
in some place which I did not notice at the time.
But now, as we sat by the tank, our thirst quenched,
our heads sheltered from the sun by clumps of guava
bushes, and feeling well at ease, the guide opened his
knapsack, and brought out, with one and the same
grasp, cats' ears, rats' tails, lunch, and crabs' claws in
discriminately mixed, and I must say that there was
far less juice and freshness in the lunch itself than
in the tails and claws. But hunger is not dainty, and
our meal was a real feast, in spite of extraneous addi
tions. Restoring the tails and claws to the knapsack,
the guide led the way up the valley to the mouth of a
tunnel. Here he gave a little stick to each, with direc
tion to keep the end pressed against the side of the
tunnel, by this means avoiding the danger of running
against the rocky sides in the dense gloom of the in
terior. After walking for, seemingly, an immense dis
tance, in reality only six hundred feet, a faint light

ASCENSION.

197

began to appear, and in a moment we were through
the tunnel, and, to my surprise, found ourselves in the
garden of our cottage. Over the keystone of the arch
of the tunnel was inscribed : ' Sic itur ad astra. In
augurated 23rd July, 1832. Completed 3rd October,

CDLNKER PLAINS AND VOLCANIC CONES, ASCENSION.

1832.' That walk to Crystal Bay was one to be long
remembered. We left Green Mountain on Monday, 7th April, and
rode down to the pier-head in the ambulance, reaching
the Pensacola at four in the afternoon.
The rainfall of Green Mountain is impounded as far
as possible in large iron tanks and led in pipes down

198 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
to Garrison. In years of drought, when the rain does
not furnish a sufficient amount of water, distilling
apparatus is provided to supply the deficiency.
Ascension is dotted over in every part by peaks and
craters of all heights, from a few feet above the general
level, to Green Mountain, two thousand eight hundred
and seventy feet high. Most of the peaks are quite
regular in outline. Some are perfect cones; many
have smoothly rounded tops, and others have such
shape and appearance as would result from the burst
ing of a huge bubble of viscous mud, lava, and cinder,
when puffed up to the limit of expansion, the wind
driving all the lighter material to leeward, leaving the
windward side of the crater much lower than the other.
One of the most perfect craters is known as ' The
Devil's Riding-School.' This crater has a quite regular
elliptical rim surrounding a saucer-shaped hollow. The
rim is flat on the top, and is composed of three con
centric ellipses; the outer and inner are of dark lava,
the middle one is of a white material. Looking down
on this crater from Green Mountain, the white middle
ellipse looks exactly like a well-kept race-course, hav
ing a road-bed of white shells. This resemblance to
the track of a riding-school is so accurate as to have
suggested a part of the name. But why the Devil's,
I could not ascertain. It may be that as it was
formed by subterranean volcanic fire, it was supposed
to be peculiarly adapted for the use of ignipotent
jockeys. A few neat cattle are pastured on the mountain, and
a flock of two or three hundred sheep. Some of these

ASCENSION. 199
are slaughtered from time to time, and served out as
rations to the officers and crew of Ascension; beef,
mutton, and green turtle being the three principal
articles of fresh food on the island. This diet is varied
a little in the proper season by eggs of the ' Wide
Awake,' or Sooty Tern. These birds deposit their
eggs on the island in myriads during their breeding-

HMh>»

GREEN TURTLE AT ASCENSION ISLAND.
season, and the commanding officer of Ascension allows
a certain number 'to be collected every day for each
family. One afternoon Captain Napier took Professor Todd
and myself to an interesting region, picturesquely
termed the ' Wide Awake Fair.' Here the Tern breeds
by thousands.

200 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA,
The breeding-season was nearly over, yet hundreds
of birds, belated in nesting, were sitting. The female
lays but one egg, directly on the ground, making no
nest at all. Either they are such devoted parents as
to brave death in defence of egg or young, or they have
slight fear; for the mother bird remained on her egg
until I was within arm's length of her, and then
reluctantly flew away, screaming a discordant protest
against my intrusion.
Young birds in all stages of growth — from little
pinches of black, fluffy down, just hatched, to birds
sufficiently developed for awkward flight — filled the
air or covered the ground. Looking upward, the sky
was darkened by a dust of birds ; and all the time the
ears were deafened by a multitudinous scream, in which
were no flashes of grateful silence. Professor Todd
caught a young bird which, not heeding the penalties
provided for bribery and corruption, offered its most
valuable possession for liberty; namely, two small
fishes about three inches long, evidently just swallowed.
The Professor refused the bribe, but magnanimously
restored the bird to freedom.
An extensive plain, about a mile and a half west of
Green Mountain, is thinly covered by a vine (Ipomcea
maritima), growing to an enormous length. I measured
two specimens by pacing ; one was fifty and the other
sixty-two feet long. It is said to bear a purple
flower shaped like a morning-glory, but it was not in
blossom at this time.
An interesting walk, and a very comfortable one
withal, is on a road or path called Elliott's Pass.

m

t

oI— I
!SioCO <

<

'*,

Q

.? til

202 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
This road leads entirely around Green Mountain, four
hundred feet below the summit. It is scarped- out of
the mountain, and is almost perfectly level, varying
from the horizontal less than twenty feet in its whole
length of more than two and a half miles. It gener
ally follows the contour of the mountain, but unusually
sharp spurs are tunnelled through. The greater part
of these tunnels are so short that daylight reaches
through the whole length ; and when this is the case,
the top and sides are covered with the most delicate
ferns of brilliant green, making a lovely drapery for
the sombre lava. In the longer passages this ferny
covering ceases at the point where the light is lost.
Before entering a tunnel it is prudent to halt and listen
for the tramp of hoofs ; for the cattle kept on the
mountain, in passing from one part of their grazing-
grounds to another, prefer to use these tunnels rather
than clamber around the outside of dangerously steep
spurs ; and they claim the. right of way, even before
the commanding officer of the Penelope Tender, and I
may safely assert that this claim is always conceded.
Magnificent views of every part of the island are
seen from different points of this road, — vegeta
tion in the immediate foreground; craters and cones,
lava, cinder, and ashes of brilliant colors in the
middle distance ; and surrounding , all, the purple sea?
heaving in great rollers under the steady push of the
trade-wind. On some parts of the island are curious little canons
three or four feet wide, and twenty or thirty deep,
having perpendicular sides. The walls are made up

INSTRUMENTS OF THE MAGNETIC AND GRAVIMETRIC SURVEY.
United States Eclipse Expedition to West Africa, 1889.

204 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
of irregular shaped nodules of a dark-colored brittle
material, rather lightly cemented together by a yellow
or ochre-colored matrix. It could easily be broken
with a pickaxe. My knowledge of geology does not
extend far enough to enable me to refer these interest
ing little cartons to a probable origin ; but a friend who
is an expert geologist, and especially learned in the
geology of volcanoes, suggests that these were dikes
of a material which weathered more rapidly than the
walls, and as the dike disintegrated, the fine matter
was blown away by the wind and washed away by the
temporary streams of water formed by the occasional
rainfalls. It is scarcely necessary to say that the Expedition
was received with unbounded attention and hospitality,
when it is remembered that all on the island were
Englishmen and sailors.
And now our observations at Ascension were com
pleted, and the prow of the Pensacola was turned
northward to far away Barbados. Night by night,
the unfamiliar southern constellations sank, one after
another, below the horizon. The white glory of the
Southern Cross dipped lower and lower, until its sil
very scintillations were hidden beneath the blue line
where sky and ocean meet and mingle. The pale
splendor of the mysterious Magellan clouds, awaiting
forever in the austral heavens the solution of their
astronomical enigma by some spectroscopic GMipus,
slowly moved down the starry slope of the south
and was lost to sight. But in the northern, the home
ward horizon, one by one the old, familiar constella-

ASCENSION. 205
tions reappeared. And when the steadfast light of
the moveless star lifted above the water, and I saw
that whatever else might change, the pole star was
changeless and true, then I felt that not only was I
nearing home, but that I could count the very stars
of heaven among my unchanging friends.

CHAPTER X.
BARBADOS.  A GLIMPSE OF BERMUDA. — HOME.

TJESDAY, 8th April, 115th day out. — Lifted
our anchor at one o'clock this afternoon, and
got under way for Barbados, three thousand
miles distant. In voyaging across tropical
seas, monotony is very apt to seize the trav
eller . in its grasp, unless he has many re
sources within himself. Day follows day, each seeming more
charming than the last ; to-day is more beautiful than yester
day, and to-morrow will be more lovely than to-day ; sky and
sea are as quiet as though no storm from the one had ever
disturbed the tranquillity of the other ; as if the truce between
them at this moment had continued from creation, and would
endure forever. And then we begin to feel a little weary
of the sweetness, and inevitably Moore's lines come to the
memory, — ' There 's a beauty forever unchangingly bright.'
But it always seems a sort of treason to the perfect sky, the
friendly, laughing water, and the delicious air, to go on with
the quotation ; and so we descend to the cabin, and on the
comfortable seat in the after port write conscientiously in the
journal all of the nothings which occur.
There is one use to be made of the hours which
would else drag heavily, especially in a long voyage
in tropical seas. After the mind has supped full of
the lovely color of sea, sky, and clouds ; when so
many whales and dolphins, grampuses and flying-fish

BARBADOS. 207
have been seen that the curiosity is no longer painfully
excited by their continual reappearance ; when the
sweetness of the trade-wind weather begins to pall a
little by its monotony, — then is the time to read those
books our conscience has urged us for many years to
read, but which are too abstruse or too dull to be stud
ied under every-day, home conditions. It is astonishing
with what comparative ease a heavy book can be mas
tered when the reader is afloat on a tropical ocean.
Unless necessary for some special purpose, it is best
to have works entirely disconnected from the object of
the voyage. A scientific treatise under such circum
stances is readable and interesting; it would be well,
too, to renew acquaintance with some classical author,
whose very name, when ashore, brings up memories of
weeks of painful grinding in college days. The sea
brings out beauties in these old writers that escaped the
eyes of the college student.
The recipe for ' Hard reading made easy ' is, take
the hard reading in your trunk, and proceed on a long
voyage to the tropics ; the reading will be taken up as
an escape from inevitable ennui, and it is really won
derful how interesting even a dull book becomes, when
its only rivals are sea, sky, and an occasional grampus.
Under such circumstances it will not be tedious to
read even Spenser's Faerie Queene. Its involved alle
gory ; the impossible deeds of its knights and heroes,
the successful enchantments of the false Duessa; and
the evil wrought to the Redcrosse knight and his lovely
ladie Una by the sorceries of the ' aged sire,' Hypoc-
risie, — all this will be read with new interest when the

208 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
perusal is done in self-defence ; and this permanent
satisfaction will remain, — that, having read it once, it
need not be read again.
Many a stronghold of the rough but vigorous early
English writers can be captured in this way by a kind
of flank movement, when a direct assault would prob
ably fail. And these old writers should be read, —
every one says so, though I imagine more praise than
read them ; as Juvenal says of honesty, Probitas laudatur
et alget. .4
There are three books which, for their literary value,
should always be included in a stock of sea-reading, —
the Bible, Shakespeare, and Pilgrim's Progress. The
picturesque muscular English of these books can never
be more fully appreciated than when read at sea ; and
the naive way the writers have of calling things by
their true names, without the prudish addition of super
fluous words for concealment's sake, is as refreshing as
the sea-breeze itself.
Saturday, 19th April, 186th day out. — The sunset last
night was a picture to be remembered. A low bank of
cumulus, ink-black against the luminous western sky, showed
Venus through a deep rift, — a spot of intense golden flame.
Above the clouds the sky, of a brilliant orange, threw down
on the water a deep glow, changed by reflection to crimson
shot through by rays of yellow, so that the long roll of the sea
was like the swell of an ocean of liquid topaz. Orion, two
hours past the meridian, hastened to add his glory to the
glory of sunset. In the immediate foreground the fine tracery
of the Pensacola's shrouds and masts was projected against
the fiery western sky. Low in the north the Great Bear
pointed faithfully to the never-moving star, while equally

BARBADOS. 209
low on the opposite side the Southern Cross watched with
eternal vigilance the pole-star of the south, now far below our
horizon. Adding impressiveness to all, the wind sang a low
refrain through the cordage of the vessel, as if in answer to
the wash of the waves and the frothy settling of the sea.
Then the light slowly faded, leaving only a faint line of deep
orange defining the horizon.
' All the light of sunset gathers low along the amber west ;
All the discords, born of daylight, awed by evening, sink to rest.'
Sunday, 20th April, 181th day out. — A very beautiful day.
We have the northeast trade-wind, a good strong breeze, and
we are probably making five knots, possibly a little more.
The sea is full of flying-fish ; they shoot out of the water,
sometimes as many as a hundred in a flock, and fly along two
or three hundred feet. They use their fins as the humming
bird does his wings, and almost as rapidly. I watched them
through my field-glass, and saw this movement distinctly. They
also prolong their flight through the air by striking the top
of a wave with the tail as they pass over it, the new impulse
carrying them to the next wave ; from this they get another
send forward to the third.
The following order was given on deck this morning:
' After guard and mizzen topmen, rig church.' Church on
shipboard, as to outward arrangements, is an essentially differ
ent thing from the same institution on shore. Of course no
part Of the vessel can be permanently set apart and dedicated
to worship ; the most that can be done is to provide a chaplain -,
and, when the Sunday weather permits, to arrange a desk on
the gun-deck and place seats enough to accommodate as many
of the officers and men as choose to attend. The desk is
draped with the national flag, and flags are hung athwart-
ship, to hide the forecastle from view ; and when all is com
plete, the effect is really very impressive. One hundred and
sixty-six jmiles to-day. 14

210 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
Tuesday, 22nd April, 189th day out. — A brisk wind this
morning, and it blew quite hard all last night. The color of
the water is different now from what it has been. Instead of
the delicious dark blue with an undertone of green, it is a
cool gray, and not perfectly clear. We are off the mouth of
the Amazon Eiver, and distant from it about seven hundred
miles. Can it be that that mighty stream stains the ocean so
far out ? Bains this afternoon, and the wind is rising.
One hundred and twenty-eight miles yesterday, and one
hundred and forty-six to-day.
Tuesday, 29th April, 196th day out. — Dropped anchor at
Bridgetown, Barbados, last night at half-past eleven. The
harbor is full of vessels,, and the place very lively. The mail
has come aboard, bringing letters from home.
Wednesday, 30th April, 191th day out. — Cloudy, and
threatens rain. Went ashore to look around the town. The
place appears to be inhabited principally by semi-civilized
negroes, who ask for a sixpence every time they answer a
simple question. I walked through the town into the country,
and examined a windmill used for pumping water for irriga
tion. The owner sent his servant up a cocoanut-tree to
throw down some nuts. They were quite soft and green. He
poured out nearly a pint of water from one, and gave me. It
was cool and sweet, and very refreshing, much more so than
water. He also gave me some ' sling ' to taste. Sling is
molasses just before it granulates into sugar.
Afterward I went into a sugar-mill, and saw the whole pro
cess, — from crushing the cane to shovelling the moist sugar
into hogsheads, having holes bored in the bottom, and rolling
the ponderous casks (each holding one ton three hundred
pounds) to the grated floor, where the molasses drips from
them into the cemented pit beneath. Many persons may like
molasses ; therefore, not to spoil their innocent enjoyment of
that tempting sweet, I will not say a word about the filth
which drops through the floor into the ' golden drip ' under-

-

THE POST-OFFICE, BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS.

212 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
neath. If I were not thoughtful for the pleasure of others, I
should tell of half-smoked cigars and cigarettes, kittens, rats,
roaches, lizards, and snakes smothered in the pool of viscid
sweet below, but good-naturedly I will not mention these
things. I am tempted to say as much as this : if any one
detects in Barbados molasses a strong tobacco flavor, I can
only say that that fact no longer excites my wonder, as all of.
the workmen both chew and smoke.
I asked the proprietor, ' How do you purify the molasses ? '
'We strain 'em through a sieve,' he answered. Barbados
molasses is a condiment that is very rich — in more than one
particular. Saturday, 3rd May, 200th day out. — Went to the Govern
ment House this morning to call on the Governor, Sir Walter
Sendall, K. C. B. After a pleasant call we strolled around
the garden to examine the lovely flowers, plants, and trees.
The Governor promised to send to the Pensacola for me a box
of various kinds of seeds, seed-pods, leaves, and flowers.
Sunday, 4th May, 201st day out. — Professor Todd and
myself walked out to Fontabelle. This is a part of Bridge
town which is, or was, the fashionable quarter. Many of the
houses are very large, and nearly all are surrounded by ex
tensive grounds, crowded with all kinds of tropical trees, plants,
and flowers. The mahogany-tree has fine foliage of dark green,
with large seed nuts on the ends of the branches. The franga-
pani is a tall, rather straggling shrub, or small tree of un
graceful shape, but with clusters of lovely blossoms. There
are three varieties, — scarlet, pink, and creamy white, the last
having a rich, delicate perfume. The cannon-ball tree, tall
and stately, with seeds much larger than cocoanuts, hanging
by a long cord-like stem around the trunk ; the bread-fruit ;
the banyan ; the blue-green cryptomeria from Japan ; cabbage,
cocoa-nut, and date palms, with tamarinds, pomegranate, and
hundreds of flowers, vines, shrubs, and creeping plants make a
glorious jungle of lush vegetation.

THE WHARVES AT BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS.

214 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
' Saturday, 10th May, 201th day out. — Dined last evening
with the Governor and Lady Sendall. A very pleasant affair.
Got our anchor up at half-past one this afternoon, and now
an hour later we are abreast of the island, on our starboard
beam. The absence of forests is one very marked feature of
Barbados, and the presence of countless acres of sugar-cane
another. The cane is light green in color, much lighter than
Indian corn, and it gives, to the fields a highly cultivated
appearance. On the horizon line are occasional groups of
cocoanut palms standing out marked and distinct against the
sky. Sometimes the trunk of the tree is invisible from dis
tance, and then the crown of foliage seems suspended in the
air, ' with no visible means of support.' Again, windmills cut
the sky-line, their huge arms swinging around with majestic
motion. Sunday, 18th May, 215th day out.- — Made Bermuda this
morning at half-past ten, having previously hoisted the yellow
quarantine flag, for we have several cases of the grippe on
board. When the doctor came, he decided at once that we
could not be allowed to land.
Monday, 19th May, 216th day out. — Not being permitted to
land, the Pensacola weighed anchor this afternoon, and started
on the last stage of our long voyage. The distance separating
us from New York was a mere nothing in view of the thousands
of miles we had already sailed ; yet this last short part of our
journey seemed to lengthen as we went on, and the speed of
the. vessel to diminish. I wished that Staten Island had been
a mountain loadstone, like that described by Peter Wilkins in
his authentic narrative, that the Pensacola might be drawn
with continually accelerated velocity to the final collision with
home. Was it the thought of home which made the ship so
slow and the miles so long ?
Toward evening to-day the water grew quite rough, and the
wind began to rise. Then the sailors brought out their stores
of weather-wisdom to overwhelm and frighten the landlubbers.

I

ii

MM

t- c- t | . ' ' ->. I,' ' H [-' „ B

i#«?S§s5§E§
f%E£
STREET SCENE AT BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS.
216 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
They saw signs in the sky — signs which never yet had failed
— of the approach of a terrible hurricane. That peculiar color
of the water was never seen except in front of a cyclone.
Mares' tails drifting from east to west were seen yesterday,
the abnormal direction of their drift being a never-failing sign
of a frightful gale from the east, which would dash the good
old Pensacola on the cruel rocks of Hatteras. Then, like Silas
Wegg, they dropped into poetry : - —
' If Bermuda lets yon pass,
Then beware of Hatteras.'
Thursday, 22nd May, 219th day out. — I have waited pa
tiently for the cyclo-hurricane predicted by the sailors, but as
yet it does not come. The air feels quite cold to us, coming
so recently from the genial tropics, although the thermometer
stands no lower than sixty.
Friday, 23rd May, 220th day out. — Beached our anchorage
at Staten Island at nine o'clock this morning, and our unique
expedition has become a thing of memory. I can appreciate
perfectly to-day the saying of some wise man, whose name I
have forgotten, that the greatest pleasure of travelling is the
getting back home.
And so our long and exceedingly delightful voyage
comes to an end, and the members of the Expedition
separate, never to meet again as a body. It is pleasant
to remember that there has been no jarring between the
component parts of the Expedition itself, nor between
the Expedition and the officers of the Pensacola. For
the intelligent zeal of the latter especial thanks are
due ; for much of the work accomplished could not
have been done without their ready and ungrudging
assistance. Professor Todd's system of automatic
photography was proved by actual trial to be perfectly

THE SHIPPING, AND STATUE OF NELSON, AT BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS.

218 AN ECLIPSE PARTY IN AFRICA.
feasible, — a system enabling the future astronomer to
obtain photographs of the corona in great numbers,
each one having a record of the exact moment when
taken and the length of exposure, practically extend
ing the time of totality indefinitely; and in this as
well as in other respects the Expedition achieved a
brilliant success.

THE END.

3 9002 00889 8273